Jan(ko) of Czarnków () (ca. 1320–1387), of Nałęcz coat of arms, was a Polish chronicler, Deputy Chancellor of the Crown and

Archdeacon An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denomina ...

Gniezno Gniezno (; ; ) is a city in central-western Poland, about east of Poznań. Its population in 2021 was 66,769, making it the sixth-largest city in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. The city is the administrative seat of Gniezno County (''powiat'') ...

. He started his career as a diplomat in service of one of Polish bishops and later joined the Royal Chancellery. From 1366 to 1371 he was the Deputy Chancellor. After the death of

Casimir III the Great Casimir III the Great (; 30 April 1310 – 5 November 1370) reigned as the King of Poland from 1333 to 1370. He also later became King of Ruthenia in 1340, retaining the title throughout the Galicia–Volhynia Wars. He was the last Polish king fr ...

in 1370, Janko supported Casimir IV of Pomerania against

Louis I of Hungary Louis I, also Louis the Great (; ; ) or Louis the Hungarian (; 5 March 132610 September 1382), was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1342 and King of Poland from 1370. He was the first child of Charles I of Hungary and his wife, Elizabeth of ...

. Losing the struggle with Angevin dynasty supporters, he was exiled in 1371, but returned in 1375. In the years 1377–1386 he wrote a

chronicle A chronicle (, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events ...

about the years 1370–1384 and events he witnessed. Some historians consider him the author of the Chronicle of Greater Poland. The chronicle, now devoid of beginning and end, covers the period between 1370 and 1384. It has the characteristics of both a diary and an anti-Angevin political pamphlet.J. Szlachtowski Monumenta Poloniae Historica, vol. 2, 1872, (Polish translation: J. Żerbiłło titled The Chronicle of Janek from Czarnków, Warsaw 1905), manuscripts (9 copies) from the 14th and 15th centuries in libraries in: Krakow, Rome, Wrocław, Wilanów and Królewiec.

References

1320 births 1387 deaths Polish chroniclers 14th-century historians Canons of Gniezno 14th-century Polish nobility Crown vice-chancellors {{RC-clergy-stub