This kind of historical evidence will help us with Thomas Paycocke.

His family brasses were set in the north aisle of the parish church of St Peter Ad Vincula.

Several of them have disappeared in the course of the last century and a half, and unluckily no brass of Thomas himself survives; but in the aisle there still lie two--the brass of his brother John, who died in 1533, and John's wife, and that of his nephew, another Thomas, who died in 1580; the merchant's mark may still be seen thereon.
Lastly, there is the evidence of the Paycocke wills, of which three are preserved at Somerset House--the will of John Paycocke _( d._ 1505), Thomas's father and the builder of the house; the will of Thomas Paycocke himself _( d._ 1518); and the will of his nephew Thomas, the same whose brass lies in the aisle and who left a long and splendidly detailed testament, full of information upon local history and the organization of the cloth industry.

For social historians have as yet hardly, perhaps, made as much use as they might of the evidence of wills.

The enormous amount of miscellaneous information to be derived therefrom about the life of our forefathers can hardly be believed, save by those who have turned the pages of such a collection as the great _Testamenta Eboracensia_.[4] In wills you may see how many daughters a man could dower and how many he put into a nunnery, and what education he provided for his sons.