The letter of Priest Jan and its medieval manuscript transcripts in Polish collections

Abstract

The author presents origins of the myth on Priest Jan in medieval literature. He discusses in details content of the letter and its sources in medieval literature and tradition. The article focuses also on previous studies on the Priest Jan’s letter, first of all on its transcripts stored in Polish libraries. One copy is available in the Wilanów codex, in the National Library. The topic literature mentions also other copies of the text, from the Jagiellonian Library collection. Another transcript existed until 1944, in the 16^th century so-called Świdziński codex. Fridrich Zarncke studies from the 19^th century are the reference work.