Biała , also known as Biała Szlachecka ("aristocratic Biała") is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

in the administrative district of Gmina Rząśnia, within

Pajęczno County __NOTOC__ Pajęczno County ( pl, powiat pajęczański) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Łódź Voivodeship, central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government r ...

Łódź Voivodeship Łódź Voivodeship (also known as Lodz Province, or by its Polish name ''Województwo łódzkie'' ) is a province- voivodeship in central Poland. It was created on 1 January 1999 out of the former Łódź Voivodeship (1975–1999) and the Sier ...

, in central Poland. It lies approximately south of

Rząśnia Rząśnia is a village in Pajęczno County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Rząśnia. It lies approximately north of Pajęczno and south-west of the regional capital ...

, north-east of

Pajęczno Pajęczno is a town in Poland, in Łódź Voivodeship, about north of Częstochowa. It is the capital of Pajęczno County (''powiat pajęczański''). Population is 6,651 (2020). History First mentioned in historical sources from 1140, when ...

, and south-west of the regional capital

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...

. The village is composed of several hamlets, including Biała Peciaki, Biała Ameryka, Biała Działy.

Monuments

The village has a wooden parish church dating from the second half of the sixteenth century, dedicated to

Saint John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

. This church was initially located in Wola Grzymalina, a now-extant neighboring village. However, due to the extension of the coal mine around Belchatow, the largest

open cut Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

coal mine in Poland, the church was transported to its current location in 1981–1982. It had been inscribed in the national register of historic monuments of Poland in 1967. Restoration works were performed both on the interior walls, which still display an original mural painting of the "

danse macabre The ''Danse Macabre'' (; ) (from the French language), also called the Dance of Death, is an artistic genre of allegory of the Late Middle Ages on the universality of death. The ''Danse Macabre'' consists of the dead, or a personification of ...

", as well as on the wooden altar. Remnants of a fortified house, dating from the fifteenth/sixteenth century, can be found on the land of the current elementary school.

Notable residents

Marcin Bielski Marcin Bielski (or ''Wolski''; 1495 – 18 December 1575) was a Polish soldier, historian, chronicler, renaissance satirical poet, writer and translator. His son, , royal secretary to king Sigismund III Vasa, was also a historian and poet. He wa ...

, Polish chronicler and poet of the sixteenth century, considered the "father of Polish prose", was born in Biała to an aristocratic family with land holdings here, hence his surname. His birth-house was depicted by

Napoleon Orda Napoleon Mateusz Tadeusz Orda ( be, Напалеон Орда; lt, Napoleonas Orda; 11 February 1807 – 26 April 1883) was a Polish-Lithuanian musician, pianist, composer and artist, best known for numerous sketches of historical sites of the ...

in his ''Album widoków historycznych Polski'' (Album of Polish Historical Landscapes) as drawing number 28.

References

External links

# http://zamki.res.pl/bialaszl.htm # http://www.tutajbylem.pl/miejsce/622/Biala_Szlachecka.html
Villages in Pajęczno County {{Pajęczno-geo-stub