Kazimierz Baran 308 imprisoned without due process of law. As a rule he answered freely in the court of lawin criminal cases. He could be detained in preliminary sense only when he committed a manifest and drastic crime strictly listed in law (such as arson, kidnapping women, highway robbery, etc.). But even in these cases he could not be kept in detention ad infinitum. Lettre de cachet or arbitrary imprisonment were totally unknown. His detention served only to secure his appearance at the closest court session. Among other civic rights of the noble one might easily point to his property which was an allodium or unconditional land holding. Like his person, thus also the nobleman’s property was successfully protected and it could not be confiscated without due process of law, either. Apart from this, the nobleman was guaranteed that his religious freedom would not be interfered with. Irrespective of whether he was Lutheran, Catholic, or Calvinist, he was put on the same footing with the rest of his nobiliary brethern. Also his political rights were vast. He freely elected his monarch as well as the deputies that represented him in the parliament. In addition, he freely attended local assemblies of the gentry to discuss urgent issues, and, as has already been alluded to, he teamed up with other nobles to formKonfederacja whenever he believed the monarch tried to transgress upon his precious liberties. Enjoying such extensive proportion of freedom the nobleman was particularly sensitive to any activities of the State that might endanger his status. His hypersensitivness might have something to do with the fact that Respublica bordered with the empire of the tsars which provided a real contrast with the state of the nobles. In the 16'^*^ century the nobles of the Commonwealth must have learned of the opritchnina and zemstchina, the two devices that served Ivan the Terrible to apply a specific social engineering and deport, almost overnight, some proportion of his boyars fromone part of the country to another. This coincided with the tsar putting a number of individuals from amongst themto death without ever bringing themto the court of law. Such things were impossible in the Respuhlica and Czeslaw Milosz, while writting the introductory chapter to his twentieth century Native Realm was right to make this remark relating to history: “Whatever may be said about the organismthat bore the title of Respublica and boasted an elected King at its head, the evils inherent in it should not be judged by our standards, but rather by comparison with neighbouring states of the same epoch. A greater contrast is hard to imagine: on the one hand, a chaotically ruled agglomerate, a sort of coral reef formed fromthe adhesion of a myriad of tiny particles; on the other the centralized domain of the czars, where the ruler was omnipotent, temporal and spiritual power were one, conspiracy and palace murders were basic political tools. In the former a climate of relaxation prevailed: habeas corpus, tumul-
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