Woodcut from 1500, with a monk and novice choir singing together from a choir book.
A choir book is a large-format music book, handwritten or later printed. The choir book was written on a desk for the vocal choir, that the entire choir had a view on the book during singing at the liturgy. The advantage was that the entire choir was allowed with only one edition, and that not every choir member needed a score.
High-volume choir books were often expensive and richly decorated, and were used for unanimous choir singing between the 13th and 18th centuries. Choir books with multilingual spiritual music were from the 15th to 17th century, but were sometimes used up to the 19th century (for example, in the Cappella Sistina or the Sitxtinian Chapel).
In the worldly vocal music in the 15th and 16th century, the choir books were also applied.
A choir book was often classified as follows:
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