Jan II the Mad
Duke of Żagań
Jan II the Mad also known as the Bad, the Wild or the Cruel (16 April 1435 – 22 September 1504), was a Duke of Żagań-Przewóz since 1439 (with his brothers as co-rulers until 1449), from 1449 Duke of Przewóz (as co-ruler of his younger brother), during 1461–1468 and briefly in 1472 Duke of Żagań and during 1476–1488 Duke of half-Głogów (the Duchy was finally reunited in 1480).
He was the fourth and youngest son of Duke Jan I of Żagań by his wife Scholastika, daughter of Rudolf III, Duke of Saxe-Wittenberg and Elector of Saxony.
Life
After his father's death in 1439, Jan II was still a minor and was placed with his brother Wenceslaus under the care of their older brothers Balthasar and Rudolf. The division of their domains was effective in 1449: Jan II and Wenceslaus received Przewóz as co-rulers. However, because at that time Wenceslaus was mentally ill, the full government of the Duchy was taken by Jan II.
The small Duchy of Przewóz did not satisfy the ambitions of Jan II, who demanded an equal division from his older brothers. The dispute ended in 1453, due to the mediation of Frederick of Saxony.
After Rudolf's death in 1454 and during the absence of Balthasar, who was in Prussia, Jan II declared himself Governor of the Duchy of Żagań. He then forced the Duchy states to pay tribute to him, an order that was eventually revoked when Balthasar return to Silesia in 1458.
The disputes erupted again in 1461, when Jan II, with the help of George of Poděbrady, King of Bohemia invaded Żagań and deposed his brother, who was forced to escape. In the same year, after the death of his mother Scholastika, he inherited her dower, the town of Nowogród Bobrzański.
The public source identifies “Jan II the Mad” as duke of Żagań. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Duke and Żagań.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q471473. VIAF identifies the subject as 80662985. The Library of Congress control number is n2017037721. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1435, 1504, 1439 and 1449.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jan II the Mad” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.