[1] He was born at 's Hertogenbosch, whence his surname Bos is derived, and is registered there until 1637, but he was in Antwerp by 1 April 1541 when he was granted citizenship of that city and membership in the Guild of St.
[8] In the summer of 1544 Bos was forced to flee Antwerp for his participation in an antisacerdotalist free-thinking spiritualist sect and was declared exiled by the Council of Brabant in his absence.
It appears that he went to Paris, where an anatomical work published by Jérôme de Gourmont in 1545 repeats text used by Cornelis Bos and even makes use of the woodblocks formerly in his possession.
Bos also produced popular engravings of religious and allegorical subjects, often dependent for their composition upon the Kleinmeisters of Nuremberg, with many parallels in the output of Virgil Solis.
An inventory of his workshop and other possessions, taken 3 August 1544, which included two printing presses, and the auction of his property 3 January 1545, have been mined by historians of printmaking.