A very little research would add considerably to our list; while, apart from records of gifts and bequests, are numberless references to books in churches. For example: in the churchwarden’s account book (_c._ 1525) of All Saints, Derby, occurs an entry beginning: “These be the bokes in our lady Chapell tyed with chenes yt were gyffen to Alhaloes church in Derby--
In primis one Boke called summa summarum.
Item A boke called Summa Raumundi [Summa poenitentia et matrimonio of Reymond de Pennaforte of Barcelona].
Item Anoyer called pupilla occuli [Pupilla oculi, by J. de Burgo].
Item Anoyer called the Sexte [Liber Sextus Decretalium].
Item A boke called Hugucyon [see pp. 223-4].
Item A boke called Januensis super evangeliis dominicalibus [Sermons of Jacobus de Voragine, Abp. of Genoa, on the Gospels for the Sundays throughout the year].
Item a grette portuose [a large breviary].
Item Anoyer boke called Legenda Aurea [Legenda sanctorum aurea of Jacobus de Voragine].”[331]
This is a respectable list for such a church. Some sixty years before there were apparently only service books (1465).[332]
From 1456 to 1475 charges occur in the accounts of St. Michael’s Church, Cornhill, for chains to fix psalters, and for writing.[333] At St. Peter’s upon Cornhill there would appear to have been a good library. “True it is,” writes Stow, “that a library there was pertaining to this Parrish Church, of olde time builded of stone, and of late repayred with bricke by the executors of Sir John Crosby Alderman, as his Armes on the south end doth witnes. This library hath beene of late time, to wit, within these fifty yeares, well furnished of bookes: John Leyland viewed and commended them, but now those bookes be gone, and the place is occupied by a schoolemaister.”[334] In 1483 the Church of St. Christopher-le-Stocks, London, seems to have had a collection only of service books; but five years later mention is made of “a grete librarie.” “On the south side of the vestrarie standeth a grete librarie with ii longe lecturnalles thereon to lay on the bookes.”[335] About the middle of the sixteenth century certain inhabitants of Rayleigh held a meeting one Sunday, after service, and, without the consent of the churchwardens, sold fifteen service books, and “four other manuscript volumes,” as well as some other church goods, for forty shillings.[336]