 The use of choirboys in Christian liturgical music can be traced back to pre-Christian times.Saint Paul's dictum that "women should be silent in churches" ("mulieres in ecclesiis taceant") resonated with this largely patriarchal tradition; the development of vocal polyphony from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance and Baroque thus took place largely, though not exclusively, in the context of the all-male choir, in which all voice parts were sung by men and boys.The first known usage in print of the term "choirboy" (rather than the earlier "singing boy") was by the Victorian novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) in Chapter Vii of his story "The Ravenswing", published in "Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country" (London, Sept. 1843, XXVIII/165, p. 321)