Abstract
This study deals with the legal status of imperial and royal libertines in the period after the Battle of White Mountain and their embedment in the period legal system. On the example of investigation of a particular criminal case, the study demonstrates a broad range of differences in the legal status of members of this group, as well as different ways they were treated by manorial and land officials.
The main source is a criminal investigation file from 1663 concerning adultery and a subsequent attempt to arrest libertine Pavel Sládek alias Cícha, in which a course of an investigation of the committed offences is recorded. In addition to this file, other relevant sources were used as well in order to see the case from a more complex perspective, including its extralegal aspects.
It followed from an analysis that were the libertine to end up in front of a court, it was necessary to proceed through the Royal Prosecution. Also, a hypothesis is presented that in some criminal cases, land captains conducted their own proceedings in which they acted as judges.
The study builds on a microhistorical approach which allows to capture, describe, and evaluate details of the studied case and embed it into the relevant legal-historical context.