This book is an attempt to bring together the principal developments of Christian choral music spanning more than ten centuries. It crosses denominational lines, but it devotes most of its space to an examination of music in the three principal liturgical streams that developed in Europe: the Roman Catholic, the Anglican, and the Lutheran. This book examines church music rather than religious concert music, and a number of relatively unheralded composers and works have been brought into the discussion. The principal function of this book is to serve as a text in courses concerned with the literature and history of church music.