A colleague has kindly drawn my attention to the very recent publication of the late Medieval Herbal from Syon Abbey (edited by John Adams and Stuart Forbes). A thick handsome volume, from a Yorkshire perspective it includes a short ‘case study in love’ (pp.61-63) about the relationship between James Grenehalgh of Sheen Priory and Joanna Sewell of Syon who had met before the latter’s novitiate. Grenehalgh gave Sewell a number of books that he had copied out by hand ornamented with their entwined initials. This came to the notice of Grenehalgh’s superiors who removed him to Coventry in 1507 or 1508 and thence to Kingston-upon-Hull Charterhouse. He died about 1530. Joanna Sewell died in 1532.
Medieval Section of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society 