Pierzchnica is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

Kielce County __NOTOC__ Kielce County ( pl, powiat kielecki) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, south-central Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local gove ...

Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship The Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, also known as the Świętokrzyskie Province, and the Holy Cross Voivodeship ( pl, województwo świętokrzyskie ) is a voivodeship (province) of Poland situated in southeastern part of the country, in the histo ...

, in south-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) of

Gmina Pierzchnica __NOTOC__ Gmina Pierzchnica is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Kielce County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, in south-central Poland. Its seat is the village of Pierzchnica, which lies approximately south-east of the regional capital Kie ...

. It lies in historic

Lesser Poland Lesser Poland, often known by its Polish name Małopolska ( la, Polonia Minor), is a historical region situated in southern and south-eastern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Kraków. Throughout centuries, Lesser Poland developed a ...

, approximately south-east of the regional capital Kielce. The village has a population of 870. In the late

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, Pierzchnica was a royal village, first mentioned in documents from 1336. It is not known when it was granted a town charter – it happened between 1359 and 1397, during the reign of either

Kazimierz Wielki Casimir III the Great ( pl, Kazimierz III Wielki; 30 April 1310 – 5 November 1370) reigned as the King of Poland from 1333 to 1370. He also later became King of Ruthenia in 1340, and fought to retain the title in the Galicia-Volhynia Wars. He ...

or Wladyslaw Jagiello. The name of the town was spelled as either Pyrzsznycza or Pyersnicza (1579). According to

Jan Długosz Jan Długosz (; 1 December 1415 – 19 May 1480), also known in Latin as Johannes Longinus, was a Polish priest, chronicler, diplomat, soldier, and secretary to Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki of Kraków. He is considered Poland's first histo ...

, the town remained a royal property, with its wooden church. In 1497, King

Jan Olbracht John I Albert ( pl, Jan I Olbracht; 27 December 1459 – 17 June 1501) was King of Poland from 1492 until his death in 1501 and Duke of Głogów (Glogau) from 1491 to 1498. He was the fourth Polish sovereign from the Jagiellonian dynasty, the ...

allowed Pierzchnica to organize markets on every Tuesday. In 1512, the

Magdeburg rights Magdeburg rights (german: Magdeburger Recht; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within ...

town charter for Pierzchnica was confirmed, after the original document had burned in a fire. Nevertheless, Pierzchnica remained a small and poor town, with 50 houses in 1621, much smaller than Szydlow. Furthermore, it was burned to the ground during the Swedish invasion of Poland (1656). Until the Partitions of Poland, Pierzchnica remained in private hands, and was part of

Sandomierz Voivodeship Sandomierz Voivodeship ( pl, Województwo Sandomierskie, la, Palatinatus Sandomirensis) was a unit of administration and local government in Poland from the 14th century to the partitions of Poland in 1772–1795. It was part of the Lesser Polan ...

. In 1789, the town had a wooden town hall, with 70 houses (65 Catholic and 5 Jewish). In 1798–1800, while part of the

Habsburg Empire The Habsburg monarchy (german: Habsburgermonarchie, ), also known as the Danubian monarchy (german: Donaumonarchie, ), or Habsburg Empire (german: Habsburgerreich, ), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities ...

, the former Voivode of Sandomierz Maciej Soltyk funded a new, stone church of St. Margaret, which replaced the wooden complex. In 1815, Pierzchnica became part of Russian-controlled Congress Poland. In 1827, it had 111 houses and the population of 641, which grew to almost 1,000 by 1862. Its residents actively supported the January Uprising, for which Pierzchnica was stripped of its town charter in 1869.

References

{{coord, 50, 41, 50, N, 20, 45, 11, E, region:PL_type:city, display=title Pierzchnica Kielce Governorate Kielce Voivodeship (1919–1939)