A singer in a church of 450-650 was generally appointed in the same way as a gravedigger - too lowly to demand the bishop's attention. While the task of selecting a reader required the bishop to hear reports of the candidate's reputation for honest living and a presentation in a public ceremony, a singer who was often charged to voice the same divine words but in song could be admitted without any references or any codified rite of induction. Yet arrangements were increasingly made to school singers in the great metropolitan churches of the West, as will be demonstrated.

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