"Precentor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so, both by his friends and his lawyers. He did, however, resign it, and betook himself manfully to the duties of the small parish of St. Cuthbert's, in the city, of which he was vicar, continuing also to perform those of precentor of the cathedral, a situation of small emoluments which had hitherto been supposed to be joined, as a matter of course, to the wardenship of the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... font were removed. In 1647 a cushion was made of the dossal. The library was left untouched and thrown open to the public, and the keys of the minster placed in charge of the Mayor and Corporation. In place of the dean and chapter, the precentor, and chancellor—all removed—four city preachers were chosen by the Assembly of Divines, and paid out of the revenues of the minster. Meanwhile the churches in the city suffered far more than the minster itself. In 1646 all "superstitious pictures in glass" and ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... seventh time that He appeared on earth, [296] and taking the guise of a precentor of a congregation, He said to Moses: "Whenever Israel hath sinned, and calleth Me by the following thirteen attributes, I will forgive them their sins. I am the Almighty God who provides for all creatures. I am the Merciful ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... as much as she could do, poor woman. They sat near the front, and many a good hard look I used to give them while I was preaching. Knox Church was a different place then. The choir sat in the back gallery, and we had a precentor, a fine fellow—he lost an arm at Ridgway in the Fenian raid. Well I mind him and the frown he would put on when he took up the fork. But, for that matter, every man Jack in the choir had a frown on in the singing, though the bass fellows would be the fiercest. We've been twice enlarged ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... a singer, and is used to designate the north side of the choir, where the precentor sits. Architecturally and ecclesiastically, the Altar is always regarded as the east whether it is so in reality or not. North side, therefore, is the left of the Altar as ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... relations who wondered much at the girl's fortune, but allowed themselves to say but little, was her grandfather, Mr. Harding. He was an old clergyman, plain and simple in his manners, and not occupying a very prominent position, seeing that he was only precentor to the chapter. He was loved by his daughter, Mrs. Grantly, and was treated by the archdeacon, if not invariably with the highest respect, at least always with consideration and regard. But, old and plain as he was, the young people at Plumstead did not hold him in any great reverence. ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... Another was precentor at the Kirk, and, besides leading the psalmody on Sunday, taught the lads and lasses of the neighborhood dancing on week days, in the winter time, ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... Fray Pedro Arce, bishop of the city of Santissimo Nombre de Jesus and its bishopric, and governor of this archbishopric, and the dean and cabildo Don Francisco Gomez Arellano, dean, and Commissary-subdelegate Gabriel de la Santa Crucada, Archdeacon Don Juan de Aguilar, Precentor Santiago de Castro, School-master Don Rodrigo Diaz Giralthe, and Keeper of Relics Don Luis de Herrera Sandoval; Canons Tomas de Gimarano, Don Miguel Garcetas, Juan de la Cruz, and Alonso Garcia de Leon: Racionero Don Francisco de Baldes, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... minister of Musselburgh, commonly called Jupiter Carlyle, from having sat more than once for the king of gods and men to Gavin Hamilton—and a shrewd, clever old carle was he, no doubt, but no more a poet than his precentor. As for poets, I have seen, I believe, all the best of our own time and country—and, though Burns had the most glorious eyes imaginable, I never thought any of them would come up to an artist's notion of the character, except ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Virgin and all the saints, forever and ever, Amen; and the whole choir repeats the Amen. Then the priest takes the two rings from a silver dish and puts one on each of their third fingers, makes them clasp hands and winds a golden girdle round them, while the precentor and the choir sing to the organ ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... first, by Gibbs, and given by the officers of the Royal Engineers in memory of their comrade, General Ballard, represents the Raising of Lazarus. The other, with Our Lord's Resurrection was given by the Rev. T. T. Griffith, precentor, in memory of Thos. Griffith, Esq., and was ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... a wee bit but-an'-ben She bade when first I kent her, Doon the side roadie by the kirk Whaur Andra was precentor. ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... peregrination, to his native town, to enjoy ease and respectability on a pension of 'eighteenpence a day'; and well did his fellow-townsmen act, when, to increase that ease and respectability, and with a thoughtful regard for the dignity of the good church service, they made him clerk and precentor—the man of the tall form and of the audible voice, which sounded loud and clear as his own Bunker fife. Well, peace to thee, thou fine old chap, despiser of dissenters, and hater of papists, as became a dignified and High-Church clerk; if thou ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the matter, and when he heard the Vision bade him limn the Holy City even as he had seen it; and the Precentor gave him uterine vellum and much fine gold and what colours he asked for the work. Then Brother Ambrose limned a wondrous fair city of gold with turrets and spires; and he inlaid blue for the sapphire, and green for the emerald, and vermilion where the city seemed aflame with ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... easy-chair lined with black leather, was regaling herself, and a neighbouring gossip or two, with a cup of genuine tea, and at the same time keeping a sharp eye upon her domestics, as they went and came in prosecution of their various duties and commissions. The clerk and precentor of the parish enjoyed at a little distance his Saturday night's pipe, and aided its bland fumigation by an occasional sip of brandy-and-water. Deacon Bearcliff, a man of great importance in the village, combined the indulgence of both parties—he had his pipe and his teacup, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... long and too formal. His Life of Gray was an admirable innovation on the form of biography then prevalent, interspersing, as it does, journals and letters with mere narrative. Mason was a royal chaplain, held the living of Ashton, and was precentor of York Cathedral. We quote the best of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... thought at first. There was a psalm read, and a remark was made on a verse here and there, and then they sang. He had a certain enjoyment in the singing, because he had never heard anything like it before. The sleet or something else had kept the usual precentor at home, and Saunners Crombie filled the office for the time. He had the singing mostly to himself for the first verse, because no one knew what tune he meant to sing, and some of those who joined, trying to do their best, "went out of it a'thegither," as Saunners said angrily afterward. ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... Church had none, and because it was reasonably supposed to be the smallest in Scotland. When the minister, who touched five feet eleven, and the beadle, who was three inches taller, assembled for the procession, with the precentor, a man of fair proportions, there was no waste ground in that room, and any messenger from the church door had to be selected with judgment. "Step up, Airchie man, tae the vestry," Burnbrae would say to the one under-sized man in Drumtochty, "and tell ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... placed on the two sides of the choir and face each other. The south side is called the {48} "decani side" and the north the "cantoris side," as being, in cathedrals, the respective sides of the dean and the cantor (or precentor). ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... organ in the Finnish country churches, and, until Andrew Carnegie gave some, hardly ever in the Scotch Highlands—each religion has, however, its precentor or Lukkari, who leads the singing; both churches are very simple and plain—merely whitewashed—perhaps one picture over the altar—otherwise no ornamentation ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... the small belfry; and the faithful, who were not very numerous, gathered to prayers. I was once present: it was the Lord's day, and seven females and eight males composed the congregation. A woman played precentor, starting with a longish note; the catechist joined in upon the second bar; and then the faithful in a body. Some had printed hymn-books which they followed; some of the rest filled up with "eh—eh—eh," the Paumotuan tol-de-rol. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... took great interest in the cathedral although he never visited his diocese. It was upon this work of the cloisters that 2800 marks were expended by Bishop Spofford, 1421-1448, in whose time the great west window was erected by William Lochard, the precentor. The richly panelled and vaulted chapel of Bishop Stanbury, approached from the north aisle of the presbytery, was added ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... hystoria—e romana lingua: in anglicam compendiose transferrem," &c. Vesey was probably one of Barclay's oldest west country friends; for he is recorded to have been connected with the diocese of Exeter from 1503 to 1551, in the various capacities of archdeacon, precentor, dean, and bishop successively. Conjecture has placed the date of this publication at 1511, but as Veysey did not succeed to the Bishopric of Exeter till August 1519, this is untenable. We cannot say more than that it must have been published between 1519 ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... appearance of effort. The word amen, in particular, was given out in a quivering, trembling voice. That word played a great part in the liturgy. In imitation of the Jews, the new adherents employed it to mark the assent of the multitude to the words of the prophet or the precentor. People, perhaps, already attributed to it some secret virtues and pronounced it with a certain emphasis. We do not know whether that primitive ecclesiastical song was accompanied by instruments. As to the inward chant, by which the faithful "made melody in their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... platform to the vestibule an aroused Christian audience will applaud the news, just received by telegraph, of a nation born in a day, and sing with more power than when Thomas Hastings used to act as precentor: ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... not knock, not considering herself grand enough for ceremony, and indeed Jess would have resented her knocking. On the other hand, when Leeby visited Tibbie, she knocked as politely as if she were collecting for the precentor's present. All this showed that we were superior ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... began to make extra efforts, in the large cathedral cities, to remedy the deficiency of more than a thousand years. In Paris, for example, which was typical of other French cities, the Church organized a regular system of elementary schools, with teachers licensed by the Precentor of the cathedral of Notre Dame and nominally under his supervision, in which instruction was offered to children of the artisan and laboring classes, of both sexes, "in reading, writing, reckoning, the rudiments of Latin Grammar, Catechism, ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... all the people remained seated except the precentor, who stood near the pulpit. Then followed a prayer, the people all standing; and then the minister read a portion of Scripture from the thirty-fourth chapter of the prophet Ezekiel beginning at the eleventh verse: "For thus saith the Lord ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... prophet, who points out loathsome things to me with his bloody finger! I don't know how it is—everything seems possible to me now. Ugh! I shudder at the future as at a glass of water seen under the microscope—is that the right word, Mr. Precentor? You have spelled it out for me often enough! I looked through one once in Nuremburg at the fair, and couldn't drink any more water all day long. Last night I saw my dear Carl with a pistol in his hand; when I looked closer into his eyes he pulled the trigger. I heard a cry, but could see nothing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... sometimes to one person, sometimes to the other, everything it was necessary for me to know. Thus I learnt that the wedding could not take place until the arrival of her mother, who was to bring the wardrobe and the diamonds of my cousin. I was the precentor going to Turin to compose the music of the opera which was to be represented at the marriage of the Duke of Savoy. This last discovery pleased me greatly, because I saw that I should have no difficulty in taking my departure the next morning, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... was explained by Jesus Christ carrying his cross, on which he was to finish his sacrifice; and the brazen serpent was illustrated by our Saviour's crucifixion. With these pictures, and many books and relics, St. Bennet brought from Rome in his last voyage, John, abbot of St. Martin's, precentor in St. Peter's church, whom he prevailed with pope Agatho to send with him, and whom he placed at Weremouth to instruct perfectly his monks in the Gregorian notes, and Roman ceremonies for singing the divine office. Easterwin, a kinsman of ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... The precentor Damoteles, Bacchus, exalts Your tripod, and, sweetest of deities, you. He was champion of men, if his boyhood had faults; And he ever loved honour and ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... in high esteem; it had the place of honour on his wall, with the bow beside it. It had been left him by a friend, an old clerk, [Norw. "klokker," almost answering to the Scotch precentor, but a klokker, in addition to leading the singing in church, has to read the opening prayer and to assist the priest in putting on his vestments.] at his home up in the north, who had taught him to play, and had evidently been one of those musical geniuses who are never fully ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... Salomon Conderc, also a wool-carder, a native of the hamlet of Mazelrode, south of the mountain of Bouges. For twenty years the Condercs, father and son, had been zealous worshippers in the Desert—Salomon having acted by turns as Bible-reader, precentor, preacher, and prophet. We have already referred to the gift of prophesying. All the leaders of the Camisards were prophets. Elie Marion, in his "Theatre Sacre de Cevennes," thus describes the influence of the prophets ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... Cathedral Library, "we first hear of a regular endowment for the acquisition of books. Bishop Carpenter made a library in the charnel house chantry, and endowed it with L 10 for a librarian. The charnel house was near the north porch of the Cathedral, and stood on or near the site of the present Precentor's house. It was a separate institution from the monastery, and had its own endowments and priests. Bishop Carpenter's foundation was probably entirely separate from the collection of books kept for the use of the monks in the cloister."[2] ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... grant him in conferring on him the dignity of treasurer of this holy church, came for Licentiate Don Miguel Garcetas (of whose good qualities I have written during these last years); and inasmuch as, by his taking possession of that office, that of precentor fell vacant, which he was filling ad interim: the governor presented for it Don Juan Cevicos, a priest of good education, very great austerity and exemplary life, and zealous for the general welfare. In him are also found many other very excellent qualities; and he is a very suitable man for ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... given on page 58 has been taken from one prepared by the late Precentor Walcott of Chichester, and communicated to "The Building News," in 1878. In this plan the choir is represented as it was arranged in olden times, and not as it appeared after it was shortened by the erection of the organ-screen under the eastern arch of the tower in Dean Monk's time. The ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... The puir precentor couldna sing, He gruntit like a swine; The verra elders couldna pass The ladles til his min'. And for the rulin' elder's grace It wasna worth a horn; He didna half uncurse the meat, Nor pray for mair the morn! He was ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... the building contiguous to the chapel. Item, it shall devolve upon the chamberlain to pay yearly to each of the monks of the said monastery of St. Martin who say mass, except those of them who hold office, the sum of six florins and six groats, {49} and to the treasurer, precentor, and surveyor, {50} to each one of them the same sum for their clothing, and to each of the young monks who do not say mass four florins and six groats. And in every year he is to do one O {51} for the greater ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... his Lutrin a mock-heroic poem written in 1673 on a dispute between two chief personages of the chapter of a church in Paris, la Sainte Chapelle, as to the position of a pulpit, had with some minor allegory, chiefly personified Discord, and made her enter into the form of an old precentor, very much as in ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... profoundly. I am often carried very high on the waves of splendid church music, when the organ's thunder rolls "through vaulted aisles" and the angelic voices of a trained choir chant the aspirations of my soul for me; but when an Edinburgh congregation stands, and the precentor leads in ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... parish!—eh! what a parish! Oh! what a parish is that o' Dunkel': They 've hang'd the minister, droon'd the precentor; They 've pu'd doon the steeple, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... quartermaster's store. Half the trees have been cut down for fuel. Still, the July sun streams very pleasantly through the remainder, and the Psalms of David float up from beneath their shade quite as sweetly as they usually do from the neighbourhood of the precentor's desk in the kirk ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... Moravian ministers from Holland, England, Ireland, North America and Greenland; and these, along with the German ministers, took turns as pall-bearers. The trombones sounded. John Nitschmann, as precentor, started the hymn; the procession to the Hutberg began. As the coffin was lowered into the grave some verses were sung, and then John Nitschmann spoke the words: "With tears we sow this seed in the earth; but He, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... puzzles. Even though only half the case is presented to us, and the book remains for ever unfinished, we need have, I think, no difficulty in working out its conclusion. The course pursued by Mr. Jasper, Lay Precentor of the Cathedral at Cloisterham, is really too suspicious. No intelligent British jury, seeing the facts as they are presented to us, the readers, could for a moment think of acquitting him of the ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... Education had up to this time been wholly undertaken by the Church. The work of teaching had been one of the main objects of the cathedral; the school and its chancellor were as essential parts of the foundation as dean or precentor. No rivals to the cathedral schools existed save those of the monasteries, and education naturally bore the impress given to it in these great institutions; profane learning was only valued so far as it could be used to illustrate the Bible, and the ordinary ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... pews with hinged doors. But the gallery that ran round three sides was fitted with simple benches. Immediately in front of the pulpit was a square pew which was set apart for the use of the elders, and close up to the pulpit, and indeed as part of this structure, was a precentor's desk. The pulpit was, to Maimie's eyes, a wonder. It was an octagonal box placed high on one side of the church on a level with the gallery, and reached by a spiral staircase. Above it hung the highly ornate and altogether extraordinary sounding-board and canopy. ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... Roma in the seventh year of his pontificate, namely, in that of 1578, at the petition of our Phelipe II, king of the Espanas. He assigned it twenty-seven prebendaries of whom the king appoints those who are necessary. They consist of five dignitaries—dean, archdeacon, precentor, schoolmaster, and treasurer; three canons (the fourth having been suppressed by the Inquisition, as has been done throughout the Indias); and two whole and two half racioneros, by virtue of a royal decree given in Valladolid, June 2, 1604, countersigned ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... Prayer pregxo. Prayer-book pregxlibro. Preach prediki. Preacher predikisto. Preaching predikado. Preamble antauxparolo. Prebendary kanoniko. Precarious duba, necerta. Precaution antauxzorgo, singardo. Precede antauxiri. Precedence antauxeco. Precedent antauxajxo. Precentor kantoro. Precept ordono. Preceptor guvernisto. Precinct limo. Precious multekosta. Precipice krutegajxo. Precipitancy trorapideco. Precipitate trorapida. Precipitation trorapideco. Precise preciza. Precisely ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... interest. One of the most important discoveries of recent years is the remains of a Roman basilica, found beneath the house of Mr. Allis, builder, in Bailgate, where a small fee is charged for admission. This has been pronounced by an authority, the late Precentor Venables, to have been “the finest Roman building in the kingdom.” Its length was 250 feet, width 70 feet, and it had stately pillars rising to a height of 30 feet. Beyond this is the fine old Newport Arch, the only Roman city gate in the kingdom. “The noblest ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... the last comes the great Hallelujah Chorus, in chapter nineteen.[21] In response to the precentor's call, they all join their voices in one vast melody. The Quartette, the Sextuples, the Angels, the Creation, the Martyrs, the Pure-Ones, the Victors—all sing their ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... clustering round the large desk, climbing over the precentor's footstool, opening the missal; and others on tiptoe were just about to venture into the confessional. But the priest suddenly distributed a shower of cuffs among them. Seizing them by the collars of their coats, he ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... MS. by William de Wanda, precentor and afterwards dean of Sarum, preserved in the Cathedral Library, we have a record of the very first ceremonies connected with the Cathedral, which being probably trustworthy in the main is so curiously interesting in itself, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... was born at Obersontheim in Swabia, on the 26th of April 1739. His father, a well-meaning soul, officiated there in the multiple capacity of schoolmaster, precentor, and curate; dignities which, with various mutations and improvements, he subsequently held in several successive villages of the same district. Daniel, from the first, was a thing of inconsistencies; his life proceeded ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... predecessor, Rev. Nathaniel Hume, canon residentiary and precentor of Salisbury, a man ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... imagination that the angel of the Church was a diocesan bishop. The office of the angel of the synagogue had, in fact, no resemblance whatever to that of a prelate. The rank of the ancient Jewish functionary seems to have been similar to that of a precentor in some of our Protestant churches; and when set forms of prayer were introduced among the Israelites, it was his duty to read them aloud in the congregation. The angel was not the chief ruler of the synagogue; he occupied a subordinate ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... vocalist, songster, songstress, minstrel, chanter, cantatrice, cantor, prima donna, precentor, bard, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... lie!" echoed Dixon, Bum, and the precentor himself. Thompson sighed; Cooper growled; and Willoughby ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... obedient to every order. They were evidently cast in a peculiar mould, and that particular mould is limited seemingly to a single man in every generation. Why it is thus we know not, and yet we know that it is so. As the precentor in a choir leads the masses with his baton, and under correct leadership they rarely miss a note, so does the great tactician issue his commands, and his wishes are supreme. I here write Jefferson, Clay and Blaine as America's intrepid leaders and ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... and C.T. Studd speak at some subsidiary meeting of the Moody campaign. They were natural athletes, and I felt that I could listen to them. I could not have listened to a sensuous-looking man, a man who was not a master of his own body, any more than I could to a precentor, who coming to sing the prayers at college chapel dedication, I saw get drunk on sherry which he abstracted from the banquet table just before the service. Never shall I forget, at the meeting of the Studd brothers, the audience being asked to stand up if they intended ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... of praise which preceded the election induce a milder spirit. When the precentor led off, "Howl, ye Sinners, Howl! Let the Heathen Rage and Cry!" each man's look told that he knew well whom the psalmist was hitting at; and when the minister invoked the "blind, stubborn, and ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... what spirit to receive the tidings. But some of them did not hesitate to test the field. Very soberly, almost in sad solemnity, they set to work there, and the result solved all doubts. Half Dunedin rushed to Tuapeka. At one of the country kirks the congregation was reduced to the minister and precentor. The news went across the seas. Diggers from Australia and elsewhere poured in by the thousand. Before many months the province's population had doubled, and the prayerful and painful era of caution, the day of small things, was whisked away in a whirl of Victorian ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... removal of Mr. Leigh from Norwich, Dr. Pretyman, precentor of Lincoln and a prebend of ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... of these rules, bearing date 1145, was made by Udon, Abbot of St. Pere en Vallee a Chantres, and that it might be more plausibly received, he taxed himself as well as all the members of his own house.[37] The librarian sometimes, in addition to his regular duties, combined the office of precentor to the monastery.[38] Some of their account-books have been preserved, and by an inspection of them, we may occasionally gather some interesting and curious hints, as to the cost of books and writing materials ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... sympathetically, trying to convey my sense of the mistake the congregation had made in its choice of both elders and precentor. ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... me. In consequence of his reticence I was driven—or drove myself—to blank verse. And that other man, the one in the chair; he may have had his expectations too. Arthur, Arthur, try to grasp the situation! You must come down here, and you must bring your hands with you. Tell the bishop and the precentor that you are needed elsewhere. They will let you off. Of course I know that a village choir needs every tenor it can get—and keep; but come. If they insist, leave your voice behind; but do bring your hands and your reading eye. Don't ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... it's owre true, John," replied my father in a very mournful manner; and while they were thus speaking, Nahum Chapelrig came ben. He was a young man, and his father being precentor and schoolmaster of the parish, he had more lair than commonly falls to the lot of country folk; over and aboon this, he was of a spirity disposition, and both eydent and eager in whatsoever he undertook, so that for his years he was greatly looked up to amang all his ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... similar in form to the antiphons, but come at the end of the psalm, being originally the reply of the choir or congregation to the precentor who ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... He immediately occupied himself in learning the language and in ministering to the natives, to their great approbation and with benefit to their souls. He has also served this cathedral more than nine years in the prebends of canon and precentor, the latter of which he holds at present. He is also at present exercising the office of vicar-general of this archbishopric, and has been its visitor-general. In both offices he has acted and given the account that could be expected from a good priest, learned and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... the young girls, plump little creatures, whose freckles and good nature well matched their curly red hair, were daughters of Precentor Jahnke, who swore by the Hanseatic League, Scandinavia, and Fritz Reuter, and following the example of his favorite writer and fellow countryman, had named his twin daughters Bertha and Hertha, in imitation of Mining and Lining. The third young lady was Hulda Niemeyer, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... governor, rector, comptroller. superintendent, supervisor, straw boss; intendant; overseer, overlooker^; supercargo^, husband, inspector, visitor, ranger, surveyor, aedile^; moderator, monitor, taskmaster; master &c 745; leader, ringleader, demagogue, corypheus, conductor, fugleman^, precentor^, bellwether, agitator; caporal^, choregus^, collector, file leader, flugelman^, linkboy^. guiding star &c (guidance) 693; adviser &c 695; guide &c (information) 527; pilot; helmsman; steersman, steermate^; wire-puller. driver, whip, Jehu, charioteer; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... church at Ripon a Book of the Gospels on purple vellum, and a Bible with covers of pure gold inlaid with precious stones. John the Precentor, who introduced the Roman liturgy into this country, bequeathed a number of valuable books to Wearmouth. Bede had no great library of his own; it was his task 'to disseminate the treasures of Benedict.' But ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... ONE communion Sabbath, the precentor observed the noble family of —— approaching the tables, and likely to be kept out by those pressing in before them. Being very zealous for their accommodation, he called out to an individual whom he considered the principal obstacle in clearing the passage, "Come back, Jock, and let in ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... door; but just as she was crossing the threshold, she suddenly stopped. "By the way," she cried, "I was forgetting to tell you; but perhaps you have heard about it?" "About what?" "The death of our precentor, Zahn." "But how does that, affect us?" "To be sure; only see that your passport is all right Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock they will come to examine it. Everybody is being arrested in the last fortnight. The precentor was assassinated last night in the library of Saint Christopher's ...
— The Dean's Watch - 1897 • Erckmann-Chatrian
... former was shelved by the composer himself shortly after its performance. His autobiography gives us some interesting details of each. After a concert-tour to Hamburg, Spohr returned to Gotha, and found there a letter from Bischoff, the Precentor of Frankenhausen, informing him that he had been commanded by the Governor of Erfurt to arrange a musical festival there in celebration of the birthday of Napoleon, August 15. He invited Spohr to assume ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... seemed to the boys to be pulpits—one behind and above the other. The highest was for the minister; the next below was for what in America would be called the leader of the choir; though in Scotland, Mr. George said he believed he was called the precentor. There was no choir of singers, as with us, but when the minister gave out a hymn the precentor rose and commenced the singing, and when he had got near the end of the first line all the congregation joined in, and sang the hymn with ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... mother, his boots creaked, the bell's note was dropping, dropping, the fat verger with his staff was undoing the cord of their seat, the boys of the choir-school were looking at him and he was blushing, he was on his knees and the edge of the kneeler was cutting into his trousers, the precentor's voice, as remote from things human as the cathedral bell itself, was crying, "Dearly beloved brethren." He would stop there and wonder whether there could be any connection between that time and this, whether those things had really happened ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... burning, went all in procession to Our Lady's altar, where the sacrament was at that time kept, because of the repairs which were going on in the great Chapel; and all kneeling on their knees, and having recited the Pater-noster and the Ave-maria, the Abbot gave a sign, and the Precentor of the Convent began in plain descant the antiphony Salvator Mundi. And when the whole Convent had sung this, the Abbot said the verse Ostende nobis, and the verse Post partum virgo, and the prayer Omnipotens sempiterne ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... Micklewham had not an opportunity of telling any of the parishioners in the churchyard of the Doctor's safe arrival, so that when he read out the request to return thanks (for he was not only school-master and session-clerk, but also precentor), there was a murmur of pleasure diffused throughout the congregation, and the greatest curiosity was excited to know what the dangers were, from which their worthy pastor and his whole family had so thankfully escaped in their voyage to ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... office. Such was the prejudice of the Parliament of Paris against the Reformers that it interdicted the hedge-schools (ecoles buissonnieres), schools which the Protestants held out in the country to escape from the jurisdiction of the precentor of Notre-Dame de Paris, who had the sole supervision of primary schools. Hence comes the proverb, to play truant (faire l'ecole buissonniere—to go to hedge school). All the resources of French civil jurisdiction ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... ben Astruc, and under Alfonso (X.) the Wise, Jews again attained to prominence in the king's favorite science of astronomy. The Alfonsine Tables were chiefly the work of Isaac ibn Sid, a Toledo chazan (precentor). In general, the results reached by Jewish scholarship at Alfonso's court were of the utmost importance, having been largely instrumental in establishing in the age of Tycho de Brahe and Kepler the fundamental principles of astronomy and a correct ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... demoralized by the smell of the steaming tea and eatables just about to be served. The suppon, (tortoise with a snout like a bird's beak,) though he continued to sing, impolitely turned his head away from Lord Cuttle-fish, and his back to the frog that acted as precentor. The sucker, though very homely, and bloated with fat, kept on in the chorus, and pretended not to notice the waiter and her tray and cups. Indeed, Madame Sucker thought it quite vulgar in the tortoise to be so eager after ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... read in the Canons of the apostles (Can. xli, xlii): "A bishop, priest or deacon who is given to drunkenness or gambling, or incites others thereto, must either cease or be deposed; a subdeacon, reader or precentor who does these things must either give them up or be excommunicated; the same applies to the laity." Now such punishments are not inflicted save for mortal sins. Therefore drunkenness is a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... besides these the statutes directed that there should be six Minor Canons chosen, among other good qualifications, for their skill in singing, by whom the services in the Cathedral, were to be conducted, according to the usage of the old Cathedrals. Of these, one was to be chosen as Precentor, to whom the other Minor Canons, the Organists, Lay Clerks, and Choristers, were to be subordinate. The chancel of Thomas a Becket's Chapel, already spoken of, was then converted into a school-room, in which the Choristers, and a certain number of other boys, ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... the door opened, and the rabbi in his black robe, a skull-cap on his head, appeared on the threshold, followed by the precentor and sexton. Solemn silence ensued, and all heads were lowered in prayer while the rabbi was crossing the room in order to salute ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... passage through this close into a narrow street, called the Rue de la Psalette, by which pedestrians passed from the Cloister to the Grand'Rue. The name of this street, proves clearly enough that the precentor and his pupils and those connected with the choir formerly lived there. The other side, the left side, of the street is occupied by a single house, the walls of which are overshadowed by the buttresses ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the crier through the toun for ye at skreigh o' day the morn. He tell't me whae ye were, and how ye were sent frae your father's house because ye wadna be a dealer, and that ye michtna disgrace your family wi' ganging on the stage. Ane Hammorgaw, our precentor, brought him here, and said he was an auld acquaintance; but I sent them baith awa' wi' a flae in their lug for bringing me sic an errand on sic a night. But I see he's a fule-creature a' thegither and clean mista'en about ye. I like ye, man," ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... story shows how slight an offence led to death in this monarch's time. In 1285, at the solicitation of Quivil, the Bishop of Exeter, Edward I. visited Exeter to enquire into the circumstances relating to the assassination of Walter Lichdale, a precentor of the cathedral, who had been killed one day when returning from matins. The murderer made his escape during the night and could not be found. The Mayor, Alfred Dunport, who had held the office on eight occasions, and the porter of the Southgate, were both tried and ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... was William Robert Smith, a blue-coat boy from London, who came out in the Company's service in 1813, served for a number of years as a clerk, and settled down in Lower Fort Garry District in 1824. Farming, teaching, catechising for the church, acting precentor, a local encyclopaedia and collector of customs, he passed his versatile life, till in the year before the Sayer affair, 1848, he became clerk of Court, which place, with slight interruption, he held for twenty years. One ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... of sight. They swam silently and evenly into the darkness, and in a quarter of an hour he heard the signal agreed upon—Whitefoot's singing yelp with which he assisted the precentor in starting such minor tunes as Martyrs and Coleshill. Then he turned and went slowly back to the old Tower of Rathan. Patsy's light was not out, and he stood a long while in the courtyard looking ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... me some very friendly lines from my worthy precentor Gottschalg in Tieffurt. He tells me of a concert in Denstedt, where several pieces of mine were performed—among others one of the Psalms (which I shall shortly send to Kahnt by Landmesser, an essentially improved version); they ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... Four archdeacons, The treasurer, The precentor, The chancellor, Thirty greater canons, Twelve lesser canons, Fifty ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... a choir. In almost all Cathedrals of old foundation in England, and very generally on the Continent, the precentor was the first dignitary in the chapter, ranking next to the dean. He superintended the choral service and the choristers. In all new foundations the precentor is a minor canon, holding a rank totally different from, ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... Scethrog. Their son Charles died without issue, and the property passed to his wife Mary (Anne in Harl. MS., 2289, t. 39; cf. vol. ii., p. 204, note), the daughter of Morgan John of Wenallt.... She afterwards married Hugh Powell, clerk, parson of Llansanffread and precentor of St. David's, and her daughter Margaret married Charles Vaughan, son ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... director; Mr. W.H. Bishop, precentor; J. Hopkins Johns (who has a very pleasing voice); Mr. J. Taylor (a fine basso, who has been a member of a meritorious concert-troupe); Mr. C.A. Johnson, organist; and Mr. George Barrett, tenor. Mr. Johnson has on several occasions been ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... precentor cudna sing, He gruntit like a swine; The verra elders cudna pass The ladles till his min'. And for the rulin' elder's grace, It wasna worth a horn; He didna half uncurse the meat, Nor pray for mair the morn. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... archdeacon's two sons,—for the Rev Charles Grantly had come to Plumstead on the occasion. And in the vaulted passage which runs between the deanery and the end of the transept all the chapter, with the choir, the prebendaries, with the fat old chancellor, the precentor, and the minor canons down to the little choristers,—they were all there, and followed in at the transept door, two by two. And in the transept they were joined by another clergyman who no one had expected to see that day. The bishop was there, looking old ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... hat shall be the precentor!" cried one of the youths from the provinces, pointing toward ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... in his eyes. Men like whatever reminds them of their purest and best days, and David had been once in the old Relief Church on the Doo Hill in Glasgow—just such a large, bare, solemn-looking house of worship. The still, earnest men and women, the droning of the precentor, the antiquated singing pleased and soothed him. He did not notice much the thin little fair man who conducted the services; for he was holding a ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... is what I sang, with a heart that knocked to the notes of the old madrigal like the precentor's tuning-fork ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... usually led by the Reader, but there is occasional mention in the records of the time of the "Uptaker" of the Psalms, who evidently performed the duties of a Precentor. ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston
... is nearly twenty-one, and is about to proceed to Egypt, as an engineer. Rosa, at school in Cloisterham, is about seventeen; John Jasper is twenty-six. He is conductor of the Choir of the Cathedral, a "lay precentor;" he is very dark, with thick black whiskers, and, for a number of years, has been a victim to the habit of opium smoking. He began very early. He takes this drug both in his lodgings, over the gate of the Cathedral, and in a den in East London, kept by a woman nicknamed "The Princess Puffer." ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... of Psalms which is occasionally found in New England is known as "Patrick's Version." The title is "The Psalms of David in Metre Fitted to the Tunes used in Parish Churches by John Patrick, D.D. Precentor to the Charter House London." A curious feature of this octavo edition of 1701, which I have, is, "An Explication of Some Words of less Common Use For the Benefit of the Common People." Here are a few ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Perhaps this was the place referred to by Ocampo, who says that the Inca Titu Cusi attended masses said by his friend Friar Diego in a chapel which is "near my houses and on my own lands, in the mining district of Puquiura, close to the ore-crushing mill of Don Christoval de Albornoz, Precentor that was of the ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... announcing the deaths of persons in whom the brethren were interested. The tabula, or notice-board, recording the names of those who were responsible for certain duties, was read; and a sermon followed. After the precentor had given minute instructions with regard to the reading and singing of the services for the day, the abbot said: "Speak of your own order." This was the call to confession; and any brother who was conscious that he had transgressed any rule, or neglected his ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... brethren after his death; and he and Godfrey of Cologne are praised for their skill in astronomy. We hear of various activities among the monks. One is good at writing, another at dictating and correcting, another has taste in painting flowers and illuminating. Henry of Coblenz combined the offices of precentor, master of the robes, gardener, glazier and barber; and also unofficial counsellor to the young, who frequently turned to him for sympathy. Antony of St. Hubert, besides the care of the refectory, was bee-master and hive-maker; and a great preacher ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... better and better. I hope Saint Patrick sung better than Blattergowl's precentor, or it would be hangchoice between the poet and psalmist. But what I admire is the courtesy of these two eminent persons towards each other. It is a pity there should not be a word of this ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... vassals of your Majesty: Don Juan de Bivero, dean of Manila. Sanctiago de Castro, precentor of Manila. The canon Diego de Leon The licentiate Marcos Maldonado, canon. The canon Ranullo de Cartagena The canon Pablo Ruiz de ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... is directed that the books are to be entrusted to the official "who is called Precentor and Armarius, because he usually has charge of the library, which is also called the armarium (press)[130]. This arrangement shews that up to this date all the books, whether service-books or not, were regarded as belonging ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... well enough. It was but John Romley's. The Dean and Chapter wanted a precentor, and among a score of candidates had selected Romley and two others for further trial. This was his chance and he was using it; making the most of it, too, to the mingled admiration and disgust of his rivals listening in ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was going to say something of the kind, Jack; but you see, you, speaking of yourself, almost necessarily leave out much that I should have put in. For instance: I should have put in the foreground your being so much respected as Lay Precentor, or Lay Clerk, or whatever you call it, of this Cathedral; your enjoying the reputation of having done such wonders with the choir; your choosing your society, and holding such an independent position in this queer old place; your gift of teaching (why, even ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... Master Nathaniel Gyles, Precentor of St. Paul's, had pipe-stem legs, and a face like an old parchment put in a box to keep. His sandy hair was thin and straggling, and his fine cloth hose wrinkled around his shrunken shanks; but his eye was sharp, and he wore about his neck a broad gold chain that ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... of this book was my attempt, when precentor of a village choir, to provide better settings of the hymns than those ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges |
