A word may first be said on the subject of nunnery libraries. Concerning these we have very little information; and, such as it is, it does not leave the impression that nunneries were rich in books. No catalogue of a nunnery library[802] has come down to us and such references to libraries as occur in inventories show great poverty in this respect, the books being few and chiefly service-books. An inventory of the small and poor convent of Easebourne, taken in 1450, shows what was doubtless quite a large library for a house of its size. It contained two missals, two _portiforia_ (breviaries), four antiphoners, one large _Legenda_, eight psalters, one book of collects, one tropary, one French Bible, two _ordinalia_ in French, one book of the Gospels and one martyrology[803]. The inventories of Henry VIII's commissioners give very little information as to books and seem to have found few that were of any value. The books found at Sheppey are thus described: "ij bokes with ij sylver clapses the pece, and vj bokes with one sylver clasp a pec, l bokes good and bad" (in the church), "vij bokes, whereof one goodly mase boke of parchement and dyvers other good bokes" (in the vestry), and "an olde presse full of old boks of no valew" (in a chapel in the churchyard) and "a boke of Saynts lyfes" (in the parlour)[804]. At Kilburn were found "two books of _Legenda Aurea_, one in print, the other written, both English, 4_d._"; the one in print must have been Caxton's edition, thus valued, together with a manuscript, at something like 6_s._ 8_d._ in present money for the pair! Also "two mass books, one old written, the other in print, 20_d._, four processions in parchment (3_s._) and paper (10_d._), two Legends in parchment and paper, 8_d._, and two chests, with divers books pertaining to the church, of no value"[805]. It will be noted that the books are almost always connected with the church services. It is perhaps significant that in only one list of the inmates of a house is a nun specifically described as librarian[806].