Nicholas Copernicus--to give him the Latin and more usual form of his name--was the youngest of four children of Niclas Copernigk, who removed from Cracow in Poland to Thorn in East Prussia (though then a city of Poland), where he married Barbara Watzelrode, a daughter of one of the oldest and wealthiest families of the province. His mother's brother, after having been a canon for many years in the cathedral of Frauenburg, was elected Bishop of the Province of Ermland. The future astronomer was born in 1473, at a time when Thorn, after having been for over two hundred years under the rule of the Teutonic Knights, had for some seven years been under the dominion of the King of Poland. There were two boys and two girls in the family; and their fervent Catholicity can be judged from the fact that all of them, parents and children, were inscribed among the members of the Third Order of St. Dominic. Barbara, the older sister, became a religious in the Cistercian Convent of Kulm, of which her aunt Catherine was abbess, and of which later on she herself became abbess. Andrew, the oldest son, became a priest; and Nicholas, the subject of this sketch, at least assumed, as we shall see, all the {24} obligations of the ecclesiastical life, though it is not certain that he received the major religious orders. Copernicus's collegiate education was obtained at the University of Cracow, at that time one of the most important seats of learning in Europe. The five-hundredth anniversary of the founding of this University was celebrated with great pomp only a few years ago. Its origin, however, dates back to the times of Casimir the Great, at the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century. Its foundation was due to the same spirit of enthusiastic devotion to letters that gave us all the other great universities of the thirteenth century. The original institution was so much improved by Jagello, King of Poland, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, that it bears his name and is known as the Jagellonian University. It was very natural for Copernicus to go back to his father's native city for his education; but his ambitious spirit was not content with the opportunities afforded there. He does not seem to have taken his academic degrees, and the tradition that he received his doctorate in medicine at the University of Cracow cannot be substantiated by any documentary evidence.