its creation has been traced and all that can be said with certainty is that the chantry must have been in existence for some time before 1320. When, in that year, Bishop Hamo de Methe chose Hugh de Aagerbf to be chaplain of the chapel of Scottegrove, it was because the right had devolved upon him by lapse of  time.⁸  Clearly, there must have been at least one prior chaplain.
   Eight years later, when William Chernare, priest, was Instituted as perpetual chaplain of Scottegrave, a patron appeared In the person of Thomas to Wyntreshulle.⁹  John de Gatewyk had left a widow, Joan, and it could be that this Thomas was her second husband. If so, it seems likely that Joan was again left a widow and then, in accordance with a common practice, reverted to the use of her first married name. In any event, when, in 1332, another vacancy in the chaplaincy occurred, the Bishop

instituted one Robert do Oddesworth on the presentation of Joan de Gatewyk.^9b
   Joan was evidently a lady of means. In the Lay Subsidy of 1334-35, she was assessed in the hundred of Axton. In the substantial sum of 13s.ld. She also possessed movables in the hundred of Westerham, where she paid 8s.2¾d. In the hundred of Axton, which was a wealthy community, the average payment was 6s.8d. That makes relatively small fry another contributor there, a mysterious but intriguing Sir John de Scottegrove, who was assessed on the same Roll at 4s.1½d. In early times, the prefix ‘Sir’ was used for priests as well as for knights; its later use in a clerical context, which outlasted the Middle Ages, was for a priest who did not hold a University degree. Whatever Sir John’s status, he remains an unplaced piece in the jig-saw.^9c