The Chancellor of Poland ( - , from ), officially, the Grand Chancellor of the Crown between 1385 and 1795, was one of the highest
officials
An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless of whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either their own or that of the ...
in the historic
Crown of the Kingdom of Poland
The Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (; ) was a political and legal concept formed in the 14th century in the Kingdom of Poland, assuming unity, indivisibility and continuity of the state. Under this idea, the state was no longer seen as the Pat ...
. This office functioned from the early
Polish kingdom of the 12th century until the end of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...
in 1795. A respective office also existed in the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...
since the 16th century. Today the office of the chancellor has been replaced by that of the
Prime Minister
A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
.
The Chancellors' powers rose together with the increasing importance of written documents. In the 14th century the office of Chancellor of
Kraków
, officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
() evolved into the Chancellor of the Crown () and from that period the chancellor powers were greatly increased, as they became responsible for the
foreign policy
Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...
of the entire Kingdom (later, the Commonwealth). The Chancellor was also supposed to ensure the legality of monarch's actions, especially whether or not they could be considered illegal in the context of
pacta conventa
''Pacta conventa'' (Latin for "articles of agreement") was a contractual agreement entered into between the "Polish nation" (i.e., the szlachta (nobility) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) and a newly elected king upon his "free electi ...
(an early set of documents containing important laws, in some aspects resembling today's
constitutions
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed.
When these princ ...
). Finally, the Chancellor was also responsible for his office, the
chancellery (). A 16th-century Polish lawyer, Jakub Przybylski, described the Chancellor as the king's hand, eye and ear, translator of his thoughts and will.
From 15th century onward there were two separate Chancellor offices, neither of them subordinate to the other: Grand Chancellor () and Vice-Chancellor (). In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, there were four Chancellors: Grand Chancellor of the Crown (), Grand Chancellor of Lithuania (), Vice-Chancellor of the Crown (), and Vice-Chancellor of Lithuania ().
History
During the
times of fragmentation of Poland, each Polish prince had his own chancellor, but with the
reunification of Poland, the office of Chancellor of Kraków (contemporary capital of the Kingdom of Poland) became dominant and other, local chancellors disappeared by the early 15th century. Also in the 15th century, the Chancellor's office was split into that of the Grand Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor. The Vice-Chancellor was, however, not a subordinate of the Chancellor and his independence was specifically confirmed by the laws passed during the reign of king
Alexander Jagiellon
Alexander Jagiellon (; ; 5 August 1461 – 19 August 1506) was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1492 and King of Poland from 1501 until his death in 1506. He was the fourth son of Casimir IV and a member of the Jagiellonian dynasty. Alexander was el ...
. The
Sejm
The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland.
The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...
of 1504 confirmed the Chancellor's office as well as its powers and responsibilities for the first time, specifically stating that one person cannot hold both Chancellors' offices, and established the Grand Lithuanian Chancellor's office. The Lithuanian Vice-Chancellor was created later, in the mid-16th century
After the
Union of Lublin
The Union of Lublin (; ) was signed on 1 July 1569 in Lublin, Poland, and created a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest countries in Europe at the time. It replaced the personal union of the Crown of the Kingd ...
in 1569 there were four Chancellors (one Grand Chancellor and one Vice-Chancellor for Crown, and another pair for Lithuania).
At first, the Chancellor's office was always given to an