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The Blaker Society © for which he was responsible as steward. In the case of Cuckfield, where the
CUCKFIELD

majority of the estate was copyhold, held for small rents, but with subsidiary
rights such as heriot, he appears to have taken a rental, and then examined the
court rolls, annotating each rental entry with the dates of the rolls in which the
key entries for the property appeared. He appears then to have added further
notes into his book as he found out more about particular properties, and in the
printed copy these additions are printed in italics.
The copyhold lands in Cuckfield manor are set out on folios 12 to 16 of
his book, pages 22 to 31 of the printed text: headed Tenentes p copia’ Man ij
r
p dci.
r
The latest annotation is dated 17 James (1619–20), John Rowe’s book
65
was finished in 1622 , and covers the court rolls as far back as 1559:

Forasmuch as there is no written costumall within any of the Manors of the Barony of
Lewes, belonging to the Right Hon. Edward Neville, Lord Bergavenny, whereof I, John
Rowe, was steward twenty-five years, and by reason thereof had good means to be
thoroughly acquainted with all the customs of the said manors, not only relying on my own
travail and experience, but also through an extraordinary desire to understand all particulars, I
did often and many several times, diligently and heedfully peruse over all or part of my lord’s
Court Rolls, books of Survey and Rentals, aunciente and moderns, (whereunto his lordship
gave me free and willing accesse), especially since the 1st year of Queene Elizabeth; I have
therefore, in this sixty-second year of mine age, undertaken to the utmost of my skill and
understanding, for the benefit of posterity, to set down in writing all the customs of the
aforesaid manors, which I hope to perform and finish with that care and faithfulness and
truth, as becometh a Christian in the awful face of that great God that seeth all secrets, and
searcheth the hearts and intendments of man, whose ayde for instruction in this business, I
heartily implore.

The survey or rental that he used as a basis was made perhaps about
1600. 148 separate properties are mentioned, some being mere slips of land,
held by 96 separate tenants . Rowe had intended to state a total of the rents, but
66
the mathematics must have eluded him: there are rents as little as a halfpenny,
the largest single item being over 17s. In the 1524 list of householders in the
township of Cuckfield in the lay subsidy of that year 98 households are listed:
67
so clearly both the 1524 record and the c. 1600 rental give us, effectively, a
complete census of heads of households for Cuckfield. In the 1524 census two
Blaker entries appear: Richard Blaker was assessed at £20; Rauff Blaker at £1.
In John Rowe’s book two Blakers appear: Richard Blaker , whose rents
68
(including ‘Blakers’) amount to over 10s, and Arthur Blaker 9d.

65 pace Horsfield, who in his History of Lewes, vol. i, p. 177, dates it to 1662, a confusion doubtless arising from
Rowe stating that it was finished when he was aged 62.
66 there are, in addition, a number of freeholders &c., but some of whom also held copyhold from the manor
67 Public Record Office E 179/189/119: Sussex Record Society lvi
68 misprinted Baker, indexed Blaker