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''Comitatus'' was a Germanic friendship structure that compelled kings to rule in consultation with their warriors, forming a ''warband''. 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. Comitatus is an Indo-European concept that predates Roman times and was practiced from Western Europe to China, especially among Eur-Asian Steppe tribes. 〔"Empires of the Silk Road" (C.I.Beckwith, 2009), p.15. 〕 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.〔(History 231 Notes )〕 The Germanic term for the ''comitatus'' is reconstructed as '' *druhtiz'', with Old English forms ''dryht'' and ''druht'', and Scandinavian ''drótt''.〔For the reconstruction and Old English forms, see Pollington, S., "Origins of the Warband" in ''TYR, vol. 2'' (Ultra Press, 2004), p. 130. For the Scandinavian form, see Thurston, T. L., "Social Classes in the Viking Age" in ''Landscapes of Power, Landscapes of Conflict: State Formation in the South Scandinavian Iron Age'' (Springer, 2001), p. 115.〕 ==Women== This Germanic form of brotherhood had a profound effect on women and men, as is evidenced by the prime example The Wife's Lament. The genre of the frauenlied emerged during the same period that the comitatus was in practice. This genre almost always consists of a woman being left by her husband because he needs to be with his liege lord, which is seen by some as very romantic due to the pain in finding it necessary to choose one's lord over one's wife. In the words of the Wife's Lament, "that man's kinsmen began to think in secret that they would separate us." Additional evidence of this fraternal society is the fundamental 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 which include females at all. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Comitatus (classical meaning)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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