The story of the demise of Jasper Vinall has been referenced in many of the game’s histories, yet the actual known details of the event are minimal at best. Since discovering this nugget of history when I joined the club in 2017 I have been researching the incident and trying to discover more details. Its hard to comprehend how different life would have been 400 years ago, to give some historical context: Shakespeare’s first folio had just been printed and toothbrushes were yet to reach our shores. 

Many of the stories of early cricket involve people being fined for playing on a Sunday when they should have been at church – when you consider that Sunday was the only free day our ancestors had at all, this shows the commitment to the game! 

My previous history teachers would likely (and quite rightly) scoff at these attempts, the only interest I ever showed for the subject being a propensity for the staining of homework with tea bags and coffee as well as burning the edges to create an olde-worldy effect on the page. However, as I kept finding the same references and details, something in my memory stirred and I realised what was missing was… primary sources. 

As the 400th Anniversary approached I redoubled my efforts. The breakthrough came in September 2023 when, after following a wormhole of citations beginning with T. J. Mcann, I found a citation that wasn’t digitised and not easily recognisable as a paper or book in print. 

This citation after some digging, I discovered that the citation was very likely this reference was the Assize Court Records – many of which are stored at the national archives. Barely a week later I was on the train to Kew with hope in my heart that I was about to hold the actual physical document that confirms our village’s claim to cricketing history. 

Everything gets slightly Dan Brown as I produce various bits of ID and lock my bag away to acquire my National Archives readers card. I am forced to watch a video on how to handle ancient documents and then I am released into the study area – through airport-style security. As I wait for the staff to locate my document I do more Googling on the Assize Court and a slow sinking feeling comes as I realise that it’s very likely the document is going to be Latin… a language with which I am sadly non-compos mentis. 

Feeling less and less like Professor Langdon I am handed a massive cardboard-bound folio. Terrified of alerting the other researchers to my greenness I carry it over to an empty desk like a number 11 striding out to bat against a quick bowler… trying and failing to project confidence. 

I pop open my laptop and immediately re-watch the video on how to not break this 400-year-old book. I open the cover and it’s as if every page of history homework I ever created has been collated here. These pages however have not been stained with coffee and tea and slightly burned at the edges – they look like that though, because they are genuine, actual, real 400-year-old pieces of paper 

Each and everyone is a primary source of some court case from the 1600s. 

Each and every one is not just in Latin, but also in such intricate calligraphy that I can’t even make out the letters. 

I work my way through the file and find the page tagged with my cited code. At first glance, I can’t make out a word of it. I sit back in my seat, cheeks flush with embarrassment at having come all this way, jumping through numerous hoops to be face to face with history and not having planned for how to read and interpret it. 

I hide in my laptop so that the actual historians won’t suspect anything, occasionally looking back over the page like I’m checking something. After at least 10 minutes of this, I realise with a jump that the page is signed, Edw Raynes. Edward Raynes this is the same name referenced in the excellent Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century by T J McCann as the coroner in the case. I go online to confirm the reference and with that, I am convinced that at least I am looking at the correct page of the correct document and that this is the actual coroner’s report for Jasper Vinall. I set about photographing it, thinking then at least if I can track someone down to translate it they won’t have to make a trip to Kew.

On the train home, I decided I couldn’t wait to find someone to translate the document and post a photo of the page and plea for help on Reddit, an online network of communities where people can dive into their interests, hobbies and passions. To my amazement, within 2 days I have a full translation of the text. In the next post is a brief report on my discovery, all made with the help of the R/AskHistorians translations and various texts on the history of cricket. Key new details have been discovered through this re-examination of the source document. We now know more details about the game, who was playing in it and with what equipment. 

Further study into this time is required, cricket references for this time are limited to brief mentions in the introductions of wider histories of the game. I intend to continue my research and widen it to the rest of the High Weald, if you have any information or would like to be involved please do not hesitate to get in touch.