Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Geninges, John
GENINGES, JOHN (1570?–1660), Franciscan friar, born at Lichfield in or about 1570, was brought up in the protestant religion, but became a catholic after the execution of his elder brother, Edmund Geninges [q. v.] He entered the English College at Douay, was ordained priest in 1607, and was sent on the mission in the following year. In 1614 or 1615 he was admitted into the order of St. Francis. In 1616, in his capacity of vicar and custos of England, he assembled at Gravelines about six of his brethren, including novices, and within three years he succeeded in establishing at Douay the monastery of St. Bonaventure, of which he was the first vicar and guardian. In 1621, with the assistance of Father Christopher Davenport [q. v.], he founded the convent of St. Elizabeth at Brussels for English nuns of the third order of St. Francis. On the restoration of the English province of his order he was appointed its first provincial, in a chapter held at Brussels on 1 Dec. 1630. He was re-elected provincial in the second chapter held at Greenwich on 15 Jan. 1633–4, for another triennium, and again in the fourth chapter at London on 19 April 1640. He died at Douay on 2 Nov. (O.S.) 1660. Dr. Oliver states that his portrait is preserved in the house of St. Peter's Chapel, Birmingham. To him is generally ascribed the authorship of the curious biography of his brother, published at St. Omer in 1614 [see Geninges, Edmund]. He also wrote ‘Institutio Missionariorum,’ Douay, 1651, 16mo.
[Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 416; Douay Diaries, i. 19, 34; Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5 Rep. p. 468; Oliver's Catholic Religion in Cornwall, pp. 540, 541, 551; Parkinson's Collectanea Anglo-Minoritica, p. 261; Petre's Colleges and Convents, pp. 44, 90; Wadding's Scriptores Ord. Minorum.]