Little is known about the choir school prior to the fourteenth century, when chapter records dated November 13, 1377 refer to a maîtrise of four altar boys directed by a maître named Médard. In the twelfth century a document concerning mass on Christmas day delegated the intonation of the Gloria in excelsis to boys positioned in the upper galleries of the cathedral.

Like the four hundred other choir schools in France, known at that time by the name psallette, the school in Rouen was closed during the Revolution toward the end of the eighteenth century. After the reopening of the country's churches, in 1802, the maîtrise was reborn in the Cour d’Albane, a cloister at the northwest corner of the cathedral close. In 1806 eight boys were taken in by competition, and by 1851 there were twenty-six choristers. Toward the end of the century the school moved to a building on the east side of the cathedral's north transept, situated on the medieval rue Saint-Romain. Cardinal Sourrieu inaugurated the “new” facility, naming it after Saint Évode, the sixteenth bishop of Rouen (d. 550).

In Duruflé's day, the Maîtrise Saint-Évode was among the more prominent schools in the city. Along with the choir schools at the cathedral in Dijon and the basilica in Nantes, it was one of the greatest choir schools in all of France. The maîtrise drew young boys from among Rouen's working class and middle class alike. Until the Second World War, it functioned mostly as a private school whose students received their certificat d’études at age fourteen, but who seldom went on to secondary studies. Some, however, pursued careers in music.

In 1918, toward the end of the First World War, a virulent strain of influenza spread across Europe, killing more people worldwide than did the war itself. The Spanish grippe, as the epidemic was often called, struck in places where hygienic conditions were bad, among gatherings of people in close quarters, such as depots, barracks, and choir schools. There was a great deal of uncertainty as to its causes and preventions, and as to how the disease was spread.