Choir (architecture)

A choir, also sometimes spelled quire, is the area of a church or cathedral that provides seating for the clergy and church choir. It is in the western part of the chancel between the nave and the sanctuary which houses the altar and Church tabernacle. In larger medieval churches it contained choir-stalls, seating aligned with the side of the church, so at right-angles to the seating for the congregation in the nave (of which there would have been little if any in the Middle Ages). Smaller medieval churches may not have a choir in the architectural sense at all, and they are often lacking in churches built by all denominations after the Protestant Reformation, though the Gothic Revival revived them as a distinct feature.