Family and Education

prob. s. of John Scherte (d. bef. 1386), of New Romney.1 m. Alice,2 ?1s.

Offices Held

Jurat, New Romney 25 Mar. 1396-7, 1404-14, 1415-16.3

Biography

Scherte paid maltolts in Hope ward, Romney, from 1383 to 1413. He owned a windmill in the parish of St. Laurence, and in 1393 John Yon* and his wife conveyed to him all their holdings within the liberty of the Port. Together with Yon, in 1398 he acquired a pasture next to ‘le Havene southwest’, besides which he also possessed land in the hundred of Worth on which he claimed exemption from taxation.4

Scherte was sometimes engaged on business for his home town, as in 1396-7 when he was sent to consult Stephen Bettenham, Romney’s counsel, on certain points relating to the franchise, and in 1400 when he went to Dover to check the lists of Portsmen eligible for exoneration from parliamentary fifteenths. In 1412 he supervised work on the local sluice.5

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: A. P.M. Wright

Notes

• 1. Who paid maltolts in Hope ward from 1379 to 1383; Romney assmt. bks. 1, ff. 8, 14, 19, 2, f. 10.
• 2. Kent AO, NR/JBr/4, no. 52.
• 3. NR/JBr/8, no. 9; assmt. bk. 2, ff. 61, 63, 65, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74, 76, 79, 85.
• 4. NR/JBr/4, nos. 11, 52, 5, no. 11; assmt. bks. 1, f. 19, 2, ff. 4-97; E179/225/22.
• 5. Assmt. bk. 2, ff. 41, 51, 76. He was probably the father of John Scherte, who was a jurat in 1416-17 and paid maltolts in Hope ward from 1418 to 1434: ibid. ff. 88-116.