ABSTRACT
Sometime in late September 1614, three persons in two small towns under the jurisdiction of the city of Hoorn, one of the Dutch Republic’s naval centers, were lifted from their beds in the middle of the night. As the three later described it – attesting to their continuing belief in their innocence – they were bound as schelmen en moordenaars, as villains and murderers, and brought to the Hoorn prison. 2 The arrested were a formerly Mennonite couple from the region of Cleves, Abraham Abrahamszn and his wife Sara, formerly known as Hans Joostenszn and Sanne Thijsdochter. 3 The third arrest was Jan Pieterzn Kuyner, or Cuyner, who for twenty years had been a Reformed elder in the village of Grosthuizen near Hoorn. It seems that the sheriff had also intended to arrest a fourth person whom he called a fugitive ( latite[e]rt ), Jan Rijcxzn. 4 The three were charged with apostasy to Judaism, as well as with proselytizing among Christians. Abraham Abrahamszn and Sara were to have “seduced” Jan Pieterszn, while Pieterszn was accused of having induced his family to adopt the Mosaic Law to which he had already committed himself.
