13/02/2019
The invention of choir stalls was a gradual process that grew out of the use of subsellia and sedilia. The Rule of St. Chrodegang refers to the standing posture of the singers and other lesser members of the community, and, as late as the eleventh century, Saint Peter Damien wrote against seating: “Contra sedentes in choro.”1 However, this attitude weakened as choir service became longer and more elaborate. Sometimes the use of T-shaped crutches (reclintoria) by the elderly or infirm was permitted, and even the plan of St. Gall included choir seats with backs (formae or formulae), which were likely moveable appointments. However, by the eleventh century, fixed seats divided only by arms — stalli — had come into existence, and from that time they took on an increasingly architectural form that defined the choir space even more distinctly than it had been previously.2
By the fifteenth century, wooden choir stalls in universal use had high, richly paneled backs, and were fitted with elaborately carved seats, dividers, and canopies. Some of the finest figural ornament can be found on the misericords, customary brackets underneath the hinged seats that, when the seats were turned up, provided relief to standing clergy who were able to lean against them. In Italy, highly detailed narrative scenes and figural decoration were executed on the backs of stalls with the use of intarsia, a method of inlay wood design.
While the senior clergy — whether they be monks, friars, or canons — occupied the high-backed stalls along the periphery of the choir enclosure, one or more rows of low-backed stalls or choir pews were placed on either side in front of them.
Courtesy https://adoremus.org @ All Saints' Cathedral, Nairobi