As many of the posts on this blog make clear, early modern books passed through generations of readers and accumulated ownership marks and marginalia that can tell us something about individual female owners as well as about the larger families and networks through which the books moved over time.
In an earlier post, Sarah Lindenbaum introduced a signature by Katherine Rous who wrote “Katherine Rouse / Her Booke” in a rare copy of the 1561 Forme of Prayers and Ministration of the Sacraments used in the English Church at Geneva printed in Geneva by Zacharie Durand (see blog post here ). The volume was based on Calvin’s liturgy and had been prepared by John Knox for the Protestants who went into exile in Geneva during the reign of Mary Tudor. The volume contains reformed liturgical rites, a catechism, and a metrical Psalter. Prepared quickly in a time of crisis, the book continued to be printed after Elizabeth’s accession, and it cast a long shadow in England and Scotland as it shaped liturgical life for generations. For example, following Knox’s return to Scotland, the form was adopted in Scotland in 1562 as the Book of Common Order.
Lindenbaum hypothesized that Katherine might be from the Rous family from the West Country. I agree, and I propose here that she was likely the Katherine Rous (d. 28 November, 1659) who was the granddaughter of Anthony Rous (d. 1620) and Elizabeth Southcott of Halton, Cornwall; the daughter of Ambrose Rous (d. 1620) and Magdalena Osborne; and the wife (as of 30 December 1617) of Francis Wills of Wivelscombe, Cornwall. Katherine and Francis appear to have lived in the Wivelscombe manor, only 8 miles from her family’s seat at Halton, and they had at least thirteen children (nine sons and four daughters) all baptized at St. Stephens just outside Saltash.[1] A map by John Nordon from 1604 shows both St. Stephens and Halton, the home of “Ant Rowse.” A sermon preached at Anthony Rous’s funeral celebrated the fact that he was a “great grand-father by his eldest” child, a likely reference to Katherine’s children.[2] It is impossible to determine whether Katherine signed the book before or after her marriage, although it was probably before.
Katherine’s ownership mark in the Forme of Prayers is intriguing for several reasons. First, it appears to shed light on her own religious experiences. Katherine signed the book in the volume’s Catechism, in the margins of a page in which the parent (or minister) instructs the child about the function of baptism. Mothers were frequently exhorted to catechize their children and servants in early modern Europe, and they often organized baptisms. Katherine may have chosen to write her name on this page because this was a section of the volume that her mother or grandmother used when catechizing her or because she thought that she would one day use (or was already using) this part of the book in teaching her own children.
The fact that Katherine Rous signed her name in such an old book, however, raises questions. Why would a young woman in the 1610s care about a fifty-year-old liturgical book designed for a community of exiles that no longer existed? And how did she acquire the book in the first place?
The short answer is that the Rouses were part of a community of Puritan non-conformists who complained loudly about the Book of Common Prayer and who envied and used more “reformed” liturgies from other countries. In other words, Katherine Rous was from precisely the kind of family that would own, use, treasure, and pass on a book like Forme of Prayers. In this regard, she might be aligned with earlier Puritan women, like Dorcas Martin (d. 1599), who specifically turned to the Genevan catechism because they were unhappy with the one in the Book of Common Prayer.
The fact that Katherine acquired, signed, and safeguarded this old, un-authorized English liturgical book not only tells us something about her, but it enriches our understanding of the activities of two other generations of Rouses. Katherine’s grandfather, Anthony Rous, and his first wife, Elizabeth, were active Puritans: they attended radical “exercises,” and they sponsored Puritan preachers who criticized the Book of Common Prayer, used the Genevan liturgy, and preached illegally in private houses.[3] They harbored ministers from Scotland, Ireland, and the Netherlands, and between 1583 and 1585, they employed John Cowper, a Presbyterian preacher who had been banished from Scotland, as a chaplain. He “edified” the family by preaching and instructing them “in the points of … salvation.”[4] It is quite possible that the Rous family acquired their book through John Cowper or one of the other non-conformist ministers they sponsored.
Although little is known about Katherine’s parents (Ambrose and Magdalena), her uncle, Francis Rous (1580–1649), was a high-profile Puritan, speaker of the Barebones parliament, provost of Eton College, and a producer of liturgical texts. He too was highly critical of the Book of Common Prayer, claiming in 1621 that he “never yet saw such a common prayer book as was fit to subscribe to.”[5] He was a member of the Westminster Assembly, a group that produced the Westminster Directory for Public Worship (1644), which was, in part, inspired by the Scottish Book of Common Order and the Anglo-Genevan Forme of Prayers signed by Katherine. Francis Rous also produced a Book of Psalms in English Meter in 1638 (STC 2737) which was adopted for general use by parliament in 1643 (B2396) and was subsequently adopted in Scotland in 1650.
Anthony Rous and his nephew, Francis, left many traces of their lives in print and in the archives. The fortuitous survival of Katherine Rous’s signature and book reminds us that women also read and valued books, and the trace she left makes a small, but valuable, contribution to our understanding of English Puritanism.
Source: Book sold by Rainford & Parris Books in April 2020 and now in private ownership.
[1] J. L. Vivian, ed., The Visitations of the County of Cornwall, Comprising the Herald’s Visitation of 1530, 1573, and 1620 with Additions (Exeter, 1887), 413, 560.
[2] Charles FitzGeffrey, Elisha his Lamentation, A Sermon Preached at the Funeralls of Sir Anthony Rous (London, 1622), 49.
[3] Micheline White, “Women Writers and Religious and Literary Circles in the Elizabethan West Country: Anne Dowriche, Anne Lock Prowse, Anne Lock Moyle, Elizabeth Rous, and Ursula Fulford.” Modern Philology 103.2 (2005): 187-214; 204. Patrick Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, rpt. 1990), 276.
[4] White, “Women Writers,” 204.
[5] Colin Burrow. “Rous, Francis (1580/81–1659), religious writer and politician.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 Sep. 2004; Accessed 5 Aug. 2022.
Early Modern Female Book Ownership 