A Choirbook is a large format manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 used by choir

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

s in churches or cathedral

Cathedral

A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...

s during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The book is large enough for the entire choir to read from one book. Often for polyphonic works all the musical part

Part

Part may refer to:*Part *Part , a relation in mereology*Part , the music played or sung by an individual instrument or voice*Parts , a 1997 children's book by Tedd Arnold...

s or voices of a piece of music are presented on a single pair of pages, in contrast to partbook

Partbook

A partbook is a format for printing or copying sheet music in which each book contains the part for a single voice or instrument, especially popular during the renaissance and baroque. This is in contrast to the large choirbook which could be shared by an entire choir, and appears to have been a...

, where each part is in a separate book. Choirbooks were generally put on a stand with the smaller boy soprano

Boy soprano

A boy soprano is a young male singer with an unchanged voice in the soprano range. Although a treble, or choirboy, may also be considered to be a boy soprano, the more colloquial term boy soprano is generally only used for boys who sing, perform, or record as soloists, and who may not necessarily...

s in front and the men in back. Once the printing of music became easier and more commonplace, choirbooks fell out of favor, replaced by smaller, cheaper, and easier to handle books and octavos.

A choirbook was a major investment. Many of them were stark and utilitarian and show signs of heavy and constant use. At larger cathedrals choirbooks were sometimes lavishly decorated and illuminated

Illuminated manuscript

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

. They represent a major investment, and were rarely owned by single people, but rather families or institutions.

Major choirbooks

• Eton Choirbook
  Eton Choirbook
  The Eton Choirbook is a richly illuminated manuscript collection of English sacred music composed during the late fifteenth century. It was one of very few collections of Latin liturgical music to survive the Reformation, and originally contained music by 24 different composers; however, many of...
  
  
• Caius Choirbook
  Caius Choirbook
  The Caius Choirbook is an illuminated choirbook dating to the early sixteenth century and containing much music by Tudor-period composers. The book appears to originate from Arundel in Sussex, and to have been created sometime in the late 1520s; the then Master of Arundel College, Edward Higgons,...
  
  
• Lambeth Choirbook
  Lambeth Choirbook
  The Lambeth Choirbook is an illuminated choirbook dating to the sixteenth century and containing much music by Tudor-period composers. The major contributors are Robert Fayrfax and Nicholas Ludford; between them they contributed at least ten of its nineteen pieces...
  
  
• Pepys Choirbook