490
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. JUNE 17, 1916.
Sept. 2, 1312, Richard Genes being one of the
parties mentioned as holding land at Pen-
bugle, near Bodmin, from one Reginald
Lowys.
Nearly all the earliest references to mem- bers of the Gennys family are concerned with individuals who were connected with the Church, and in the ancient Bishops' Registers are recorded the institutions of members of the family as deacons and rectors to the benefices of, amongst others, Otterham in Cornwall, and Mary-Tavy and Hittisleigh in Devon.
In the De Banco Rolls for 1396 there is recorded a suit in which it is stated that one William de Hillescote leased certain lands in East Hillescote to Thomas Geneys. Helscote is in the parish of North Petherwin in Cornwall, some five miles from Launceston, and this record therefore shows that one branch of the family of Gennys was resident in that neighbourhood more than a century before they appeared at Launceston.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the family had largely increased, and branches are found in many of the parishes throughout Cornwall. The neigh- bourhood of Launceston appears to have been the district in which they chiefly resided. The first mention of the name in this locality occurs in the records of the borough when, in 1532, one Jone Gennys held a house in the town from the corpora- tion ; and in 1534 William Genys, one of the Canons of Launceston, acknowledged the Royal Supremacy.
The records of the corporation indicate that the family held a foremost position among the burgesses, the office of Mayor of Launceston having been held for nine separate years between 1584 and 1667 by members of the family.
Towards the close of the sixteenth century a branch of the family is found to have settled at Plymouth, and on the peninsula lying to the west of Plymouth Sound. Within the latter area are the parishes of Sheviock, Antony, St. John's, Rame, and Maker, and in the parish registers are found numerous entries connected with the Gennys family. It is also to be observed that Mount Edgcumbe, the seat of the ancient family of the same name, is situated in the north-east corner of the peninsula, and documentary evidence is forthcoming showing at least one intermarriage between the families of Gennys and Edgcumbe, as well as other transactions connected with the tenure of land. Nicholas Gennys, grandson of Nicholas Gennys, Mayor of Launceston in 1641, was Mayor of
Plymouth in 1703 ; and the family is still
represented in the neighbourhood by Mr.
J. C. Henn- Gennys of Whitleigh House, this
property having been acquired through the
marriage in 1750 of John Gennys, M.D., of
Plymouth, to Christiana, the daughter and
coheir of Nicholas Docton of Whitleigh,
Plymouth.
It has not been found possible to prepare a connected pedigree of the Gennys family from an earlier date than the beginning of the sixteenth century, as all the references obtained in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, consequent upon the absence of consecutive records, are of a disconnected and fragmentary nature.
GEBTBUDE THBIFT.
79 Grosvenor Square, Rathmines, Dublin.
" SPIRITUS NON POTEST HABITABE IN
sicco ' ' (v. sub ' Authors of Quotations Wanted,' 11 S. iv. 488). Over four years ago a correspondent wrote from Copenhagen under the signature B. : "I have seen this dictum attributed to St. Augustine, but I could not find it in his ' Opera,' even with the aid of an index locupletissimus. Can any one tell me where it hides ? "
The French form occurs in " a jolly chapter of Rabelais," i. 5, " En sec jamais 1'ame ne habite." Commentators for example, Mr. W. F. Smith in the notes to his translation quote
L'ame jamais ne se contient, Ainsi que lisons, en sec lieu.
'LeNef desFols' (1497).
and refer to St. August. "Decret." ix. 32, 2. On turning to the ' Decretum,' Par. ii. Caussa xxxii. Qusestio ii. sect, ix., in the ' Corpus Juris Canonici,' Cologne, 1779, torn. i. p. 383, we find an extract introduced as from St. Augustine, " in libro Quses- tionum veteris et novi Testamenti, c. 23," to which the editor has added in square brackets, " imo Hilarius Diaconus c. an. 380." Towards the end of this extract are the words " Anima certe, quia spiritus, in sicco habi- tare non potest ; ideo in sanguine fertur habitare." The ' Liber Quaestionum yeteris et novi Testamenti,' generally attributed to the deacon Hilarius (No. 31 of that name in Smith and Wace's ' Dictionary of Christian Biography '), is printed in the Appendix to vol. iii. of the Benedictine edition (Paris, 1679) of Augustine, col. 41, sqq. The passage quoted is in col. 50, and runs as above, except that spiritus is followed by est, and there is no habitare after fertur. This then was the hiding- place of the quotation for which B. was
