Catherine Thysmans alias Tishem (died 1595) was an erudite woman from Antwerp who educated her son, the celebrated scholar Jan Gruter, while in exile in England.
[1] The principal source for Catherine Tishem's life is a worshipful tribute to her son, Jan Gruter, written by one of his pupils, Balthasar Venator.
[2][3] According to Venator, Tishem was a remarkably erudite woman, fluent in Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and English and able to read Galen's original text.
In 1558 in Antwerp, Tishem married a widowed and wealthy merchant and juror, Wouter Gruter (also "Walterus", "de Gruytere", etc.
[1] Her husband co-signed the Compromise of Nobles in 1566,[4] and to flee prosecution in the Spanish Netherlands, they moved to the Dutch Calvinist exile community of Norwich.