Comitatus (Classical meaning)
Encyclopedia
Comitatus was a Germanic friendship structure that compelled kings to rule in consultation with their warriors. The comitatus, as described in the Roman
historian Tacitus
's treatise Germania
(98.AD), is the bond existing between a Germanic
warrior and his Lord, ensuring that neither leaves the field of battle before the other. The translation is as follows:
Comitatus, being the agreement between a Germanic lord and his subservients (his Gefolge or host of followers), is a special case of clientage and the direct source of the practice of feudalism
. Partly influenced by the Roman practice, exemplified in the Marian Reforms
initiated by Gaius Marius
, of a general distributing land to his officers after their retirement, the Germanic comitatus eventually evolved into a wholesale exchange between a social superior and inferior. The social inferior (in Feudalism
, the Vassal
) would pledge military service and protection to the superior (Lord). In return, the superior would reward the inferior with land, compensation, or privileges.
. The genre of the frauenlied was created during the same time as comitatus was being practiced. This genre almost always consists of a woman being left by her husband because he needs to be with his liege lord. In the words of the Wife's Lament, "that man's kinsmen began to think in secret that they would separate us." Since this is a fraternal society, another example of the treatment of women is the almost complete absence of women in writings from the early medieval period. The Exeter Book
, which includes The Wife's Lament contains few pieces written from the female perspective or including females at all.
Because of the close relation to the liege lord, the men serving in comitatus were closer to their kinsman than to their wives. Some of the most beautiful poetry written in the Exeter Book is written in memory of a dead liege lord. More is written about religious information, and one is written about the loss of a woman. The Husband's Message
though thinking of women shows how they were considered possessions by the men of the tribes. In "The Husband's Message" he lists her after many of the belongings he has already obtained almost like another object to be gotten. In this poem, the women were left all alone during a feud. The man, though he claims to love the woman, chose to leave her alone in order to be with his brothers and leige lord of the clan. Even though there is a 'love poem' written in early medieval times, this poem shows that the love portrayed was questionable.
Comitatus-Warrior Culture
-Lord/Thane relationship: They had mutual obligations to each other.
-Blood-feud: They went by the rules of blood feud. It was always endless retaliation: a life for a life.
-Compensation/Werguild (man price)
-Kinship ties were important
-Participated in gift/insult exchange: it was an economy of honor, it showed the importance of "stuff."
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
historian Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
's treatise Germania
Germania (book)
The Germania , written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around 98, is an ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.-Contents:...
(98.AD), is the bond existing between a Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
warrior and his Lord, ensuring that neither leaves the field of battle before the other. The translation is as follows:
Comitatus, being the agreement between a Germanic lord and his subservients (his Gefolge or host of followers), is a special case of clientage and the direct source of the practice of feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
. Partly influenced by the Roman practice, exemplified in the Marian Reforms
Marian reforms
The Marian reforms of 107 BC were a group of military reforms initiated by Gaius Marius, a statesman and general of the Roman republic.- Roman army before the Marian reforms :...
initiated by Gaius Marius
Gaius Marius
Gaius Marius was a Roman general and statesman. He was elected consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his dramatic reforms of Roman armies, authorizing recruitment of landless citizens, eliminating the manipular military formations, and reorganizing the...
, of a general distributing land to his officers after their retirement, the Germanic comitatus eventually evolved into a wholesale exchange between a social superior and inferior. The social inferior (in Feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
, the Vassal
Vassal
A vassal or feudatory is a person who has entered into a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. The obligations often included military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain privileges, usually including the grant of land held...
) would pledge military service and protection to the superior (Lord). In return, the superior would reward the inferior with land, compensation, or privileges.
Women
This Germanic form of brotherhood had a profound effect on women, as can be seen by the prime example The Wife's LamentThe Wife's Lament
The Wife's Lament or The Wife's Complaint is an Old English poem of 53 lines found in the Exeter Book and generally treated as an elegy in the manner of the German frauenlied, or woman's song. The poem has been relatively well-preserved and requires few if any emendations to enable an initial reading...
. The genre of the frauenlied was created during the same time as comitatus was being practiced. This genre almost always consists of a woman being left by her husband because he needs to be with his liege lord. In the words of the Wife's Lament, "that man's kinsmen began to think in secret that they would separate us." Since this is a fraternal society, another example of the treatment of women is the almost complete absence of women in writings from the early medieval period. The Exeter Book
Exeter Book
The Exeter Book, Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, also known as the Codex Exoniensis, is a tenth-century book or codex which is an anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry. It is one of the four major Anglo-Saxon literature codices. The book was donated to the library of Exeter Cathedral by Leofric, the...
, which includes The Wife's Lament contains few pieces written from the female perspective or including females at all.
Because of the close relation to the liege lord, the men serving in comitatus were closer to their kinsman than to their wives. Some of the most beautiful poetry written in the Exeter Book is written in memory of a dead liege lord. More is written about religious information, and one is written about the loss of a woman. The Husband's Message
The Husband's Message
The Husband's Message is an anonymous Old English poem, 54 lines long and found only on folio 123 of the Exeter Book. The poem is cast as the private address of an unknown first-person speaker to a wife, challenging the reader to discover the speaker's identity and the nature of the conversation,...
though thinking of women shows how they were considered possessions by the men of the tribes. In "The Husband's Message" he lists her after many of the belongings he has already obtained almost like another object to be gotten. In this poem, the women were left all alone during a feud. The man, though he claims to love the woman, chose to leave her alone in order to be with his brothers and leige lord of the clan. Even though there is a 'love poem' written in early medieval times, this poem shows that the love portrayed was questionable.
Comitatus-Warrior Culture
-Lord/Thane relationship: They had mutual obligations to each other.
-Blood-feud: They went by the rules of blood feud. It was always endless retaliation: a life for a life.
-Compensation/Werguild (man price)
-Kinship ties were important
-Participated in gift/insult exchange: it was an economy of honor, it showed the importance of "stuff."