Stańczyk

Stańczyk (c. 1480–1560) (Polish pronunciation: [ˈstaɲt͡ʂɨk]) was the most famous court jester in Polish history. He was employed by three Polish kings: Alexander, Sigismund the Old and Sigismund Augustus.

Scarcity of sources gave rise to four distinct hypotheses in the 19th century: that he was entirely invented by Jan Kochanowski and his colleagues, or that he was "perhaps a typical jester dressed by his contemporaries in an Aesopian attire, perhaps a Shakespearean vision of 19th century writers, or perhaps indeed a grey eminence of the societatis ioculatorum". In any measure, common consensus among modern scholars is that such a person indeed existed and even if he did not, he had a tremendous importance to Polish culture of later centuries, appearing in works of many artists of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Almost nothing is known about Stańczyk's life and even his name and identity are a matter of dispute. Contemporary sources mention court jesters named Gąska and Stańczyk. Notably, both names are featured in two short poems by Jan Kochanowski. Both words are diminutives, of the words gęś (goose) and Stanisław, respectively, rather than proper names in their own right. All of the above led Aleksander Brückner and later scholars to believe that Gąska and Stańczyk are merely two nicknames of the same person. Because of that hypothesis Stańczyk is sometimes referred to as Stanisław Gąska, a name that resembles a typical Polish name, except it is of much later provenance and was coined in late 19th century rather than during the jester's times.

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