Musing in my mund what rayment I shall were;
For now I wyll were this, and now I wyl were that;
Now I wyl were I cannot tel what.
We shall see Andrew again when we come to Pevensey.
OLD WILLS
A glimpse of the orderly mind of a pre-Reformation Cuckfield yeoman is given in a will quoted recently in the Sussex Daily News, in an interesting series of articles on the county under the title of "Old-time Sussex":
"In the yere of our lorde god 1545. the 26 day of June, I, Thomas Gaston, of the pish of Cukefelde, syke in body, hole, and of ppt [perfect] memorie, ordene and make this my last will and test, in manr. and forme folling.
Fyrst I bequethe my sowle to Almyghty god or [our] lady St. Mary and all the holy company of heyvyng, my bodie to be buried in the church yarde of Cukefeld.
It. (item) to the Mother Church of Chichester 4d.
It. to the hye alter of Cuckfeld 4d.
It. I will have at my buryall 5 masses. In lykewise at my monthes mynd and also at my yerely mynd all the charge of the church set apart I will have in meate and drynke and to pore people 10s. at every tyme."
The high altar was frequently mentioned favourably in these old wills. Another Cuckfield testator, in 1539, left to the high altar, "for tythes and oblacions negligently forgotten, sixpence." The same student of the Calendar of Sussex Wills in the District Probate Registry at Lewes, between 1541 and 1652, which the British Record Society have just published, copies the following passage from the will of Gerard Onstye, in 1568: "To mary my daughter £20, the ffeatherbed that I lye upon the bolsters and coverlete of tapestaye work with a blankett, 4 payres of shetts that is to say four pares of the best flaxon and other 2 payre of the best hempen the greate brasse potte that hir mother brought, the best bord-clothe (table cloth?) a lynnen whelle (i.e., spinning-wheel) that was hir mothers, the chaffing dish that hangeth in the parlor."
In those simple days everything was prized. In one of these Sussex wills, in 1594, Richard Phearndeane, a labourer, left to his brother Stephen his best dublett, his best jerkin and his best shoes, and to Bernard Rosse his white dublett, his leathern dublett and his worst breeches.