Many other churches, some of them small and unimportant, owned books, and received them as gifts or bequests. In the time of Richard II the Royal collegiate chapel of Windsor Castle had, besides service books, thirty-four volumes on different subjects chained in the church, among them a Bible and a Concordance, and two books of French romance, one of which was the _Liber de Rose_.[325]
The library of St. Mary’s Church, Warwick, was first formed by the celebrated antiquary, John Rous. Before his time we hear only of one or two books. In 1407 there was a collection of fifty service books, and a _Catholicon_, the latter being perhaps the nucleus of a library.[326] “At my lorde’s auter,” that is, at the Earl of Warwick’s altar, were to be found among other goods and books, the Bible, the fourth book of the _Sentences_, _Pupilla Oculi_, a work by Reymond de Pennaforte, Isidore, and some canon law.[327] John Rous seems to have inherited the bookish tastes of his relative, William Rous. William had bequeathed his books to the Dean, charging him to allow John to read them when he came of age and had received priest’s orders.
Among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum is a small volume written on parchment by Humphrey Wanley, which includes a copy of a curious inventory of vestments, plate, books, and other goods made in the time of John Rous, 1464. A portion of this inventory has been printed in _Notices of the Churches of Warwickshire_, i. 15-16. “It. v bokes beynge in the handes of Maister John Rous now priest whuche were Sir William Rous and bequath hem to the Dean and Chapitre of the forseide Chirche Collegiall under condicōn that the seid maister John beynge priest shulde have hem for his special edificacōn duryng his lief. And after his decees to remayne and to be for ever to the seide Dean and Chapitre as it appereth by endentures thereof made whereof one party leveth with the Dean and Chapitre. That is to say i book quem composuit ffrater Antoninus Rampologus de Janis 2 fo Chorinth 14. It. 1 book cald pars dextera et pars sinistra 2 fo non ð carere. It. 1 bible versefied cald patris in Aurora 2 fo huic opifex. It. 1 book of powles epistoles glosed 2 fo de Jhu qui dr Xtus. It. 1 book cald pharetra 2 fo hora est jam nos de sompno surgere. It. 1 quayer in the whuche is conteyned the exposicōn of the masse 2 fo cois offerim.”