Born in Braşov ("Kronstadt", "Brassó"), Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary, nowadays Romania, he studied at the University of Vienna between 1520 and 1525, graduating with a "magister artium" title. As the Ottomans approached Vienna in 1529 ("see Siege of Vienna"), Honter moved first to Regensburg, and, in 1530, he registered at the Kraków's Jagiellonian University (in Poland) as "Johannes Georgii de Corona, artium magister Viennensis" (Corona is medieval Latin for Braşov). It was in Kraków that he published his first books, a Latin grammar and cosmography manual.