Celebrating the Hours

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Organs were not officially allowed in Cistercian churches until 1486, but the General Chapter's prohibition was not always observed and it is known that there were two organs at Meaux, in Yorkshire, in 1396.
© Cistercians in Yorkshire
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It behoves men to sing with manly voices and not imitate the lasciviousness of minstrels by singing with shrill voices like women, or, in common parlance, falsetto. And, therefore, we have decreed that extremes in singing be avoided so that the singing may be redolent of seriousness and devotion be preserved.
[Institutes of the General Chapter, LXXV, in Waddell, Narrative and Legislative Texts, p. 489.]

The quality of worship was vital to the Cistercians. The monks were not to rush the psalms, slur or skip the words, and were to sing like men rather than shriek like women. Criticism was levelled at the Black Cluniac monks who took expensive liquorice cordials to help them reach the high notes when singing the Office. (4)

Aelred of Rievaulx was particularly scathing of musical embellishments, and censured the ‘swelling and swooping’ of voices, the ‘din of bellows and the humming of chimes’ which, he argued, made a mockery of worship; sound, he argued, was of secondary importance and should merely enhance the meaning (Read more).

It was the job of the precentor and succentor (sub-cantor) to encourage singing in choir and also to ensure that everyone paid attention. Whoever did not sing devoutly was to be beaten.(5)