Abstract
The article focuses on the legal status of imperial and royal libertines, which is demonstrated on the example of investigation of a criminal case of Pavel Sládek alias Cícha. He was a publican in a pub that he rented in the village of Kotopeky.
In early 1663, he was accused of adultery and other criminal offences and attempts to arrest him followed. This case is important not only because of the number of preserved sources, but especially because of the fact that it took place in the village of Kotopeky which was divided among three manorial lords: Hořovice dominion (which was incorporated into Zbiroh manor farm estate), Praskolesy dominion and St.
Vitus Metropolitan Chapter at Prague Castle. Moreover, the pub was owned by a townswoman from Žebrák.
The attempts to arrest the libertine were initiated by a scribe from Zbiroh, yet they were hampered by complicated proprietorial relations and by the fact that it concerned a broad range of actors. As regards methodology, the study is embedded in a microhistorical approach.
After a brief introduction of the class of libertines, the article offers a detailed analysis of the criminal case in question. It offers three perspectives on the (violent) arrest of the libertine that later became one of the key moments of the entire process.
The first one is that of the main participant, Pavel Sládek; the second perspective is that of villagers who attempted to arrest Sládek; the third perspective is that of the scribe from Zbiroh, who issued an instruction for the arrest. These three perspectives combined with the subsequent investigation then help us to see the period understanding of individual manorial lords' powers and authorities with respect to the case in question.
From the legal point of view a key moment was the involvement of the land captains, who were contacted by the libertine hoping that they would protect him from the violent attack. One of the hypotheses of the study holds that the land captains of that time formed a quasi-court tribunal where they also decided on some criminal cases in the territory under their administration.
The study is based on a broad range of sources. Besides the actual criminal investigation file, the following sources were also used: sources of record-keeping nature (manorial lists of subjects or lists of subjects according to their faith from 1651); land registers (cadastres, urbarium, land books of various manorial lords); normative texts (for instance the Renewed Land Ordinance for Bohemia of 1627 or Town Rights in the Kingdom of Bohemia from 1579); court documents (the municipal court in Beroun, land court, Chamber court or court of appeal); Royal Prosecution documents, old and new manipulation funds, officials' correspondence and many other sources.
The aim was thus to cover not only the criminal legal aspect of the entire case, but also its social aspects.