Comitatus has been seen as an Indo-European concept that predates Roman times, practiced from Western Europe to China, especially among Eurasian steppetribes. As described in the Roman historian Tacitus's treatise Germania, the comitatus is the bond existing between a Germanic warrior and his Lord, ensuring that the former never leaves the field of battle before the latter. The translation is as follows: Tacitus stressed the abnegation of the follower, and his dependence on his patron, whose prestige rested on his ability to successfully wage war, and thus provide a military training for his followers. Loyalty was met by material reward.
Feudal developments
Comitatus, being the agreement between a Germanic lord and his subservients, is a special case of clientage, and the direct source of the practice of feudalism. Partly influenced by the Roman practice of patronage, - as exemplified in the Marian Reforms initiated by Gaius Marius, of a general distributing land to his officers after their retirement, as well as by the later bucellarius or private follower - the Germanic comitatus eventually evolved into a wholesale exchange between a social superior and inferior. The feudal social inferior or vassal would pledge military service and protection to the superior. In return, the superior would reward the inferior with land, compensation, or privileges.
Nomenclature
The Germanic term for the comitatus is reconstructed as *druhtiz, with Old English forms dryht and druht, and Scandinaviandrótt. Equivalents highlighting different features of the lord/man bond include the trust-element of the early Frankish antrustio, royal bodyguard; the Danish vederlag or Society, and the Norse hird or household following.
Women
in the Exeter Book uses the language of the comitatus to sharpen awareness of the conflict between the wife's claim on her lover, and the brotherhood-claims of the lord and his followers: In the words of the Wife's Lament, "that man's kinsmen began to think in secret that they would separate us." How typical this is of the medieval genre of the frauenlied – with the romantic theme of a woman being left by her husband because he needs to be with his liege lord – is however debatable. Even in Anglo-Saxon England, if the Exeter Book contains few pieces featuring women or written from the female perspective, Beowulf by contrast has roles for women precisely in strengthening the cohesion and unity of the comitatus: thus the 'peace-weaver' Queen Wealtheow makes the normative claim that “Here each comrade is true to the other/loyal to lord, loving in spirit./The thanes have one purpose, the people are ready:/having drunk and pledged, the ranks do as I bid.”.
