Something may be gleaned also from the legacies of books left to nuns in medieval wills. These again are nearly always psalters or service books of one kind or another; and indeed the average layman was more likely to possess these than other books, for all alike attended the services of the church. Thus Sir Robert de Roos in 1392 leaves his daughter, a nun, "a little psalter, that was her mother's"[807]; Sir William de Thorp in 1391 leaves his sister-in-law, a nun of Greenfield, a psalter[808]; William Stow of Ripon in 1430 leaves the Prioress of Nunmonkton a small psalter[809], William Overton of Helmsley in 1481 leaves his niece Elena, a nun of Arden, "one great Primer with a cover of red damask"[810], and so on. There may be some significance in the fact that John Burn, chaplain at York Cathedral, leaves the Prioress and Convent of Nunmonkton "an English book of Pater Noster"[811]. It strikes a strange and pleasant note when Thomas Reymound in 1418 leaves the Prioress and Convent of Polsloe 20_s._ and the _Liber Gestorum Karoli, Regis Francie_[812], and when Eleanor Roos of York in 1438 leaves Dame Joan Courtenay "unum librum vocatum Mauldebuke," whatever that mysterious tome may have contained[813]. Some light is also thrown backward upon their possessors by isolated books which have come down to our own day and are known to have belonged to nuns. These come mostly, as might be expected, from the great abbeys of the south, where the nuns were rich and of good birth, from Syon and Barking, Amesbury, Wilton and Shaftesbury, St Mary's Winchester, and Wherwell[814]. Sometimes the MS. records the name of the nun owner. Wright and Halliwell quote from a Latin breviary, in which is an inscription to the effect that it belonged to Alice Champnys, nun of Shaftesbury, who bought it for the sum of 10_s._ from Sir Richard Marshall, rector of the parish church of St Rumbold of Shaftesbury. There follows this prayer for the use of the nun: Trium puerorum cantemus himnum quem cantabant in camino ignis benedicentes dominum. O swete Jhesu, the sonne of God, the endles swetnesse of hevyn and of erthe and of all the worlde, be in my herte, in my mynde, in my wytt, in my wylle, now and ever more, Amen. Jhesu mercy, Jhesu gramercy, Jhesu for thy mercy, Jhesu as I trust to thy mercy, Jhesu as thow art fulle of mercy, Jhesu have mercy on me and alle mankynde redemyd with thy precyouse blode. Jhesu, Amen[815]. A manuscript of Capgrave's _Life of St Katharine of Alexandria_, which belonged to Katherine Babyngton, subprioress of Campsey in Suffolk, has a very different inscription: Iste liber est ex dono Kateryne Babyngton quondam subpriorisse de Campseye et si quis illum alienauerit sine licencia vna cum consensu dictarum [sanctimonialium] conuentus, malediccionem dei omnipotentis incurrat et anathema sit[816].