Also vicar-choral. [VICAR 3.] (See quot. 1854, and cf. CHORAL a.1 1 b.)
The pl. occurs in various forms, as vicars choral, † vicars chorals, and, rarely, vicar chorals.
1530–1. Act 22 Hen. VIII., c. 15. All other … canons, pety canons, vicars chorall, & clerkes.
1546. Yorks. Chantry Surv. (Surtees), 348. The same prebendaries have … vicars … under them … called vicars choralles, which … are bound to discharge the said prebendaryes of all their cures and service in the sayd church.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Wilts., III. (1662), 151. William Lawes, son of Thomas Lawes, a Vicar Choral of the Church of Salisbury.
1704. Acc. Innov. Abp. Dublin, 3. He calls … the Vicar-Chorals, and orders them to answer, notwithstanding [etc.].
1770. in Mem. Rev. W. Richardson (1822), 14. You seem to have been much taken with York Minster and Cathedral Service, would you like to be one of the Vicars Choral?
1837–8. Act 1 & 2 Vict., c. 106 § 39. Any Spiritual Person, being Prebendary, Canon, Priest Vicar, Vicar Choral, or Minor Canon.
1854. Hook, Church Dict. (ed. 7), 791/1. Vicars choral [are] the assistants or deputies of the canons or prebendaries of collegiate churches,… especially, though not exclusively, in the duties of the choir or chancel, as distinguished from those belonging to the altar and pulpit.
1873. Phillimore, Eccl. Law Ch. Eng., 161. The two classes of petty or minor canons and vicars-choral. Ibid. A vicar-choral of the cathedral church of Wells.
Hence Vicar-choralship, the office of a vicar-choral.
1868. Ecclesiologist, XXIX. 171. The endowments … of vicars-choralships.
1891. Star, 1 Nov., 1/7. The vicar-choralship of St. Paul’s is by no means a poor appointment.
