It is evident that there were two classes of volumes, one utilised for distribution for separate reading, and the other reserved for reference and placed in a separate room (first called _armarium_ and later _bibliotheca_) where they were fastened with irons chains to lecterns or reading-desks. In the various details concerning the distribution of books, the arrangement of the lecterns for the chained books, etc., the practice in the early colleges was evidently modelled on that of the monasteries. The system of chaining, as adopted in England, would allow of the books being readily taken down from the shelves and placed on the lectern for reading. One end of the chain was attached to the middle of the upper edge of the right-hand board or cover; the other to a ring which played on a bar which set in front of the shelf on which the book stood. The fore-edge of the books, not the back, was turned to the front. A swivel, usually in the middle of the chain, prevented tangling. The chains varied in length according to the distance of the shelf from the desk.[219] In a copy of Locke’s _Treatise on the Epistles_, printed in 1711, Maitland found inscribed the following “advertisement”: “Since, to the great reproach of the nations and a much greater one of our Holy Religion, the thievish disposition of some that enter into libraries to learn there no good, hath made it necessary to secure the innocent books, and even the sacred volumes themselves, with chains (which are better deserved by those ill persons who have too much learning to be hanged and too little to be honest), care should be taken hereafter that as additions shall be made to this library (of which there is a hopeful expectation), the chains should neither be longer nor more clumsy than the use of them requires, and that the loops whereby they are fastened to the books may be rivetted on such a part of the cover and so smoothly as not to gall or raze the books while these are removed from or to their respective places.”[220] Isidore, Bishop of Seville (_c._ 560-636), possessed probably the largest collection of books at that time in Europe. It was contained in fourteen presses or _armaria_, each of which was ornamented with a bust and inscribed with verses. The series of verses concludes with the following notice addressed _ad interventorem_, a term which may be interpreted _a talkative intruder_: _Non patitur quemquam coram se scriba loquentem; Non est hic quod agas, garrule, perge foras._ (The scribe allows no one to speak in his presence; there is nothing for you to do here, chatterbox; you had better go outside)--a motto which would serve very well for a reading-room of to-day.