Jeronimus Cornelisz - Early Life

Early Life

Born in the Frisian capital, Leeuwarden, Cornelisz grew up in a non-conformist household. His mother and probably his father were Mennonites, members of an Anabaptist church. It has been speculated that they may have had links with some of the more militant Anabaptist movements, such as the Batenburgers, that flourished in the Netherlands during the sixteenth century.

The young Jeronimus was well educated, probably at the Latin School at Dokkum, and followed his father into the family trade by training to become an apothecary. He qualified around the year 1623 and practiced in his home town until 1627, leaving in that year apparently as a result of disagreements with the town council.

Cornelisz moved to the much larger Dutch city of Haarlem, where he opened up an apothecary shop near the centre of the town. In November 1627 he and his wife had a son, but the child died less than three months after being placed in the care of a wet nurse. The cause of death was established as syphilis, and Cornelisz became embroiled in a legal action against the nurse, seeking to prove that his child had contracted the disease from her and not from his wife. Perhaps partly as a consequence of this distraction, his apothecary shop shortly thereafter failed and Cornelisz himself was driven to the brink of bankruptcy.