Nicolaus Copernicus was born on 19 February 1473 in the city of Toruń (Thorn), in the province of Royal Prussia, in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.[2][3] His father was a merchant from Kraków and his mother was the daughter of a wealthy Toruń merchant.[4] Nicolaus was the youngest of four children. His brother Andreas (Andrew) became an Augustinian canon at Frombork (Frauenburg).[4] His sister Barbara, named after her mother, became a Benedictine nun and, in her final years, prioress of a convent in Chełmno (Kulm); she died after 1517.[4] His sister Katharina married the businessman and Toruń city councilor Barthel Gertner and left five children, whom Copernicus looked after to the end of his life.[4] Copernicus never married or had children.[citation needed]

Father's family
The father’s family can be traced to a village in Silesia near Nysa (Neiße). The village's name has been variously spelled Kopernik,[5] Copernik, Copernic, Kopernic, Coprirnik, and today Koperniki.[6] In the 14th century, members of the family began moving to various other Silesian cities, to the Polish capital, Kraków (1367), and to Toruń (1400).[6] The father, Mikołaj the Elder, likely the son of Jan, came from the Kraków line.[6]

Nicolaus was named after his father, who appears in records for the first time as a well-to-do merchant who dealt in copper, selling it mostly in Danzig (Gdańsk).[7][8] He moved from Kraków to Toruń around 1458.[9] Toruń, situated on the Vistula River, was at that time embroiled in the Thirteen Years' War (1454–66), in which the Kingdom of Poland and the Prussian Confederation, an alliance of Prussian cities, gentry and clergy, fought the Teutonic Order over control of the region. In this war, Hanseatic cities like Danzig and Toruń, Nicolaus Copernicus' hometown, chose to support the Polish King, Casimir IV Jagiellon, who promised to respect the cities' traditional vast independence, which the Teutonic Order had challenged. Nicolaus' father was actively engaged in the politics of the day and supported Poland and the cities against the Teutonic Order.[10] In 1454 he mediated negotiations between Poland’s Cardinal Zbigniew Oleśnicki and the Prussian cities for repayment of war loans.[6] In the Second Peace of Thorn (1466), the Teutonic Order formally relinquished all claims to its western provinces, which as Royal Prussia remained a region of Poland for the next 300 years.

Copernicus' father married Barbara Watzenrode, the astronomer's mother, between 1461 and 1464.[6] He died about 1483.[4]

Mother's family


Copernicus' maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode the Younger
Nicolaus’ mother, Barbara Watzenrode, was the daughter of a wealthy Toruń patrician and city councillor, Lucas Watzenrode the Elder (deceased 1462), and Katarzyna (widow of Jan Peckau), mentioned in other sources as Katarzyna "Rüdiger gente Modlibog" (deceased 1476).[4] The Watzenrode family, like the Kopernik family, had come from Silesia from near Świdnica (Schweidnitz), and after 1360 had settled in Toruń. They soon became one of the wealthiest and most influential patrician families.[4] Through the Watzenrodes' extensive family relationships by marriage, Copernicus was related to wealthy families of Toruń, Danzig and Elbląg (Elbing), and to prominent noble families of Prussia: the Czapskis, Działyńskis, Konopackis and Kościeleckis.[4] The Modlibógs (the Polish name means "Pray God") were a prominent Polish family who had been well known in Poland's history since 1271.[11] Lucas and Katherine had three children: Lucas Watzenrode the Younger (1447-1512), who would become Bishop of Warmia and Copernicus' patron; Barbara, the astronomer's mother (deceased after 1495); and Christina (deceased before 1502), who in 1459 married the Toruń merchant and mayor, Tiedeman von Allen.[4]

Lucas Watzenrode the Elder, a wealthy merchant and in 1439-62 president of the judicial bench, was a decided opponent of the Teutonic Knights.[4] In 1453 he was the delegate from Toruń at the Grudziądz (Graudenz) conference that planned the uprising against them.[4] During the ensuing Thirteen Years' War (1454–66), he actively supported the Prussian cities' war effort with substantial monetary subsidies (only part of which he later re-claimed), with political activity in Toruń and Danzig, and by personally fighting in battles at Łasin (Lessen) and Malbork (Marienburg).[4] He died in 1462.[4]

Lucas Watzenrode the Younger, the astronomer's maternal uncle and patron, was educated at the University of Kraków (now Jagiellonian University) and at the universities of Cologne and Bologna. He was a bitter opponent of the Teutonic Order,[12][13] and its Grand Master once referred to him as "the devil incarnate".[14] In 1489 Watzenrode was elected Bishop of Warmia (Ermeland, Ermland) against the preference of King Casimir IV, who had hoped to install his own son in that seat. As a result, Watzenrode quarreled with the king until Casimir IV’s death three years later.[15] Watzenrode was then able to form close relations with three successive Polish monarchs: John I Albert, Alexander Jagiellon, and Sigismund I the Old. He was a friend and key advisor to each ruler, and his influence greatly strengthened the ties between Warmia and Poland proper.[14][16] Watzenrode came to be considered the most powerful man in Warmia, and his wealth, connections and influence allowed him to secure Copernicus’ education and career as a canon at Frombork Cathedral.[17][18]