Jan of Jenštejn
Archbishop of Prague
Jan of Jenštejn (also John of Jenstein; Czech: Jan z Jenštejna; 1348 – 17 June 1400) was a Bohemian archbishop, composer and poet. From 1379 to 1396 he was the Archbishop of Prague. He studied in Bologna, Padua, Montpellier and Paris.
Life and career
Born in 1348 in Prague, to Paul of Jenštejn, a Bohemian esquire who was chief notary for Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV.
he became the owner of the castle Hrádek in 1379. The same year he succeeded to the archbishopric of his uncle Jan Očko z Vlašimi who had stepped down. Soon he became Chancellor to Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia. The next year the capital was struck by a Plague epidemic, which struck him as well. He recovered, but this episode left deep scars on his character and he began to examine theological and philosophical problems at his castle Helfenburk u Úštěka.
He had abandoned public life because of a quarrel with Wenceslav IV, which was mainly over the matter of the Popes of Avignon. Jan was still loyal to Pope Urban VI, to whom the king was not.
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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 Feb 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q468193. VIAF identifies the subject as 88990550. The Library of Congress control number is n00093345. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1348, 1400, 1379 and 1396.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jan of Jenštejn” 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.