Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/599

 .V.JUNE 23,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

495

and the " maid's store." St. Katherine was a favourite saint with the latter, and so was the B. V. Mary. I should think that the " May light" referred to might mean Mary light, or perhaps " Mayd' light." Your correspondent might like to compare his accounts with those of Morebath, which have been very instructively edited in vol. iv. of the Somerset Record Society, and printed in full, with a glossary, as a supplement to Devon Notes and Queries, 1905-6.

ETHEL LEGA-WEEKES.

MICHELL FAMILY (10 th S. v. 445). As a descendant of this old Sussex family, I should like to supplement some of the notes of H. In the first place, the name was spelt either with one or with two " J's." My great- great- grandmother Hellen Catherine, daughter of John Michel of Warnham, and granddaughter of John Michel of Field Place (where Percy Bysshe Shelley was born) signed her name 4 ' Michel," and in all the papers and notes as to this family in my possession this spelling predominates. The Edward who succeeded his cousin John at Stammerham in 1610 was, according to a pedigree in my possession, the same who in 1641 married the daughter of Richard (not F.) Middleton, of Horsham, and was the father of Walsing- ham Michel and of all the others enumerated by H. He is quite right as to the male line through Walsingham being extinct, the only representatives of this elder branch of the family being the descendants of Sir Bysshe Shelley, who married the only daughter and heir of the Rev. Theobald Michel. This latter had a cousin (I am not sure in what degree), the John of Warnham mentioned above, who married Anne Shelley, daughter of John Shelley of Fen. The cross marriages of the Shelleys and Michels were so numerous in successive generations that the exact amount of Michel or Shelley blood in some of the children of these marriages was exceedingly difficult to apportion, and degrees of cousinship were almost impossible to state with accuracy. I remember my great-aunt telling me that her grandmother the Hellen Catherine supra used to laugh and say that some Michels by name had more Shelley blood than some of those that bore the name, and vice versa. So far as I can ascertain, this line of Michels i.e., the descendants of John of Warnham are now only continued on the distaff side. The earliest known ancestor of the family is a John of Stammernam who settled certain lands in 1462 (see Dallaway and Cartwright's ancestor to the John of Stammerlmm who
 * Sussex'). Of the descent from this remote

died in 1610, or of the Edward who married Mary Middleton, I have no certain know- ledge at present. E. E. STREET. Chichester.

ST. GENIUS (10 th S. v. 449). A very interesting account of St. Genes, M., who is said to have suffered under Diocletian about 303, may be found in the August volume of Baring-Gould's * Lives of the Saints ' (pp. 267-70). This date does not tally with that given by S. J. A. F., but the circumstances of the conversion are the same, and in the February volume (p. 443) the author inclines to identify the St. Gelasius there treated of, who was martyred in 297, with St. Genesius or Genes. It is told of St. Gelasius that he was suddenly convinced of the truth of Christianity when parodying its rites upon the stage. He is said to have been " second clown of the theatre at Heliopolisin Phoenicia."

ST. SWITHIN.

See Husenbeth's * Emblems of Saints' : "S. Genesius of Rome. Martyr, 26 August, A.D. 303. Baptized on the stage: angels by him (Callpt). Playing a violin on the stage (ib). Player holding a sword (Ikonographie)."

See also the Rev. S. Baring- Gould's * Lives of the Saints' under "St. Genes, August 25, A.D. 303."

Upon an old fifteenth- century oak stall- end in the north transept of the picturesquely situated church of Coombe- in - Teignhead, near Newton Abbot, in fair Devon, may be seen a cleverly carved representation of this saint. He is shown wearing a clown's cap and bells. HARRY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

Does not the query involve some confusion ? Genius and the thirty soldiers (3 May) form a rather legendary story of a famous Christian teacher (never an actor, so far as appears), who was a confessor (not a martyr), under Diocletian, at Lectoure, half-way between Agen and Auch. Genasius, an actor, was martyred at Rome, in 285 or a little later. For both men see references in 'Diet. Christian Biog.' C. S. WARD.

Wootton St. Lawrence, Basingstoke.

St. Genius is no other than Sanctus Genesius, actor, ' Acta Sanctorum,' 25 August (Aug. Vol. V. p. 122). All possible details with regard to this saint and the whole history of the legend in all countries of Europe, Syria, and North Africa are concen- trated in ' Studien zur Genesius Legende, 3 by Bertha von der Lage (" Wissenschaf tliche Beilagen zum Jahresbericht der Charlotten- schule zu Berlin, 1898 and 1899"). This scholarly woman-teacher has written quite