History
The village of Biskupice was created on the property belonging to the bishops of Kraków, just like the the nearby villages of Zabawa and Zdrochec. They were created around 1241 when the bishop of Kraków, Wiesław of Kościelec, allowed his brothers to establish two settlements in the Radłowice forests. It later became the cause of many border conflicts, because the brothers and their descendants began to claim the rights to all the forests of the Radłowice bishop’s estate. It was only in 1450 that cardinal Zbigniew Oleśnicki erected a border pillar and issued an appropriate act regarding the border with the villages of Zabawa and Zdrochca. This act was signed by Paweł of Taczów, the subcamerarius of Sandomierz and Jan Oleśnicki, the voivode of Sandomierz, the cardinal’s brother. The document mentioned of making of border mounds and about making of incisions on trees to “once and for all separate the goods of the Zabawa and Zdrochec from the property of the bishop”.
Architecture
A border pillar was set on a medieval road leading from Radłów to Opatów. It was made of Pińczów limestone of a quadrilateral prism shape with bevelled corners. It has been covered with a stone roof with a ball, under which there are four bas-reliefs on the wider walls in rectangular planes. There is a crucifix on the front wall and the figure of a woman in a halo, probably the Mother of God, and Saint John on two side ones, and a cartouche with the coat of arms of Zbigniew Oleśnicki on the back wall. Under the cross there is an inscription engraved with a Gothic letters: “This sign divides the priesthood and nobles estates. 1450 year 4 May. I give the clergy on the right, I admit to the nobles on the left. “
Current state
The border pillar in Biskupice Radłowskie, next to the road column from Konin, is the oldest and best preserved monument of its kind in Poland. The area around it is publicly available. It is located on the eastern side of road no. 964, where it turns behind the village of Biskupice to the hamlet of Zabawa.
bibliography:
Krasnowolski B., Leksykon zabytków architektury Małopolski, Warszawa 2013.
Webpage gminaradlow.pl, Historia i zabytki.