What is "precentors"

Usage examples of "precentors".

On festival days and Sundays four mother precentors intone the offices before a large reading-desk with four places.

There will be in the chapel only the four Mother Precentors, Mother Ascension and yourself.

He was a sombre and awe-inspiring personage, before whom trembled the singing boys in albs and long coats, the precentors, the brothers of Saint-Augustin, the clerk, who officiated in the morning services at Notre-Dame, as he stalked slowly along beneath the lofty arches of the choir, majestic, pensive, with arms folded and head so bowed upon his bosom that no part of his face was to be seen but his bald and ample forehead.