The public praise used to be led by an individual called the "precentor," who occupied a box in front of, and a little lower than, the pulpit.
The clergy went in procession to the west door of the church, where two canons received the ass, amid joyous chants, and led it to the precentor's table.
The chief authority is the Vita Lanfranci by Milo Crispin, who was precentor at Bec and died in 1149.
Map's career was an active and varied one; he was clerk of the royal household and justice itinerant; in 1179 he was present at the Lateran council at Rome, on his way thither being enter tained by the count of Champagne; at this time he apparentm held a plurality of ecclesiastical benefices, being a prebend of St Paul's, canon and precentor of Lincoln and parson of Westbury, Gloucestershire.
In the English Church in cathedrals of the "Old Foundation" the precentor is a member of the cathedral chapter and officially ranks next to the dean.