Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [176]
Loth Vogel ONAH 99, fol. 159v. There is no surviving record of any person of this name in the Haarlem birth, marriage, or burial registers. However, the historian Gabrielle Dorren notes the existence of an Otto Vogel, an extremely wealthy corn merchant from Amsterdam who settled in Haarlem in the hope of improving the health of his sickly wife. This Vogel was in Haarlem by 1604 and resisted several efforts by local dignitaries to force him to become a full citizen of his adopted town. Eventually, Vogel became so irritated by this pressure that he threatened to leave the town, taking with him his—unnamed—brother. It seems possible that this brother may have been Cornelisz’s Loth. “De Eerzamen. Zeventiende-Eeuws Burgerschap in Haarlem,” in R. Aerts and H. te Velde (eds.), De Stijl van de Burger: Over Nederlandse Burgerlijke Cultuur vanaf de Middeleeuwen (Kampen: Kok Agora, 1998), p. 70.
The case against Heyltgen For the condition of Belijtgen, see the testimony of Gooltgen Joostdr, 3 May 1628 (ONAH 130, fol. 159); Aeffge Jansdr, Ytgen Hendricxdr, Grietgen Dircksdr, and Wijntge Abrahamsdr, 18 June 1628 (ONAH 130, fol. 198); Maijcke Pietersdr van den Broecke, 6 July 1628 (ONAH 130, fol. 219); Willem Willemsz Brouwerius (Cornelisz’s physician), 8 August 1628 (ONAH 99, fol. 131); Aeltgen Govertsdr, 9 August (ONAH 99, fol. 134); and Aecht Jansdr and Ytgen Henricxdr, 11 August 1628 (ONAH 99, fol. 134v). For Heyltgen, see the testimony of Jannitge Pietersdr, Willem Willemsz, Grietgen Woutersdr, Hester Ghijsbertsdr, Jannitgen Joostsdr, and Elsken Adamsdr, 27 July 1628 (ONAH 60, fol. 99); Elsken Adamsdr, 11 August 1628 (ONAH 99, fol. 135v).
Aert Dircxsz ONAH 60, fol. 99. Asked by one Cornelia Jansdr who Dircxsz was, Heyltgen is alleged to have replied: “A dirty whore hunter.” In the context of the dispute, this might well be taken to suggest that her former lover carried a venereal disease.
Heyltgen’s response ONAH 99, fol. 131; ONAH 130, fol. 159.
“She twisted the scanty evidence” Aeltgen Govertsdr, who had given a statement to the solicitor Sonnebijl at the wet nurse’s request, later disputed the accuracy of the deposition he produced in her name. She had, she said, protested at the time, to which Sonnebijl’s wife, who was also present, had rejoined: “Well, woman, one cannot write perfectly—do you think my husband hasn’t got a soul to lose?” ONAH 99, fol. 134. Unfortunately the Sonnebijl archive has not survived, denying us Heyltgen’s side of this long-running dispute.
Heyltgen’s reappearance in the Grote Houtstraat ONAH 130, fol. 159.
Cornelisz comes to terms with Vogel ONAH 99, fol. 159. The solicitor on this occasion was Willem van Triere.
Cornelisz as an Anabaptist There is no definite proof of Jeronimus’s Anabaptist antecedents, though V. D. Roeper (ed.), De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629 (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1994), p. 14, and Philip Tyler, “The Batavia Mutineers: Evidence of an Anabaptist ‘Fifth Column’ Within 17th Century Dutch Colonialism?” Westerly (December 1970): 33–45 have previously speculated that he had a background in the Mennonite community. The fact that he appears to have been unbaptized (for which see JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 211]; there is also no trace of any baptism in the surviving records of Leeuwarden, Bergum, or Haarlem) is obviously suggestive. Perhaps more significantly, the Haarlem archives indicate that his wife, Belijtgen, was herself an Anabaptist (in ONAH 130, fol. 159 Heyltgen Jansdr describes her, among other insults, as “a Mennonite whore”). Definite proof is unlikely ever to emerge; the records of the Haarlem Mennonites go back no further than the second half of the seventeenth century. But I am inclined to feel that there is an excellent chance Cornelisz came from Anabaptist stock.
Anabaptist numbers in Leeuwarden Israel, op. cit., p. 656.
Religious toleration and persecution Ibid. pp. 372–83.
Anabaptist origins and views William Estep, The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction