Comitatus

In the historiography of Germanic warrior culture, a comitatus, Latin for a group of companions, was an armed escort or retinue bound to a leader by an oath of fealty, describing the relationship between a lord and his retainers. Scholars have traditionally treated these Germanic warbands as the historical origin of later medieval European institutions built around nobles and their armed followers, tracing a line from tribal retinue to feudal vassalage. Many scholars today, however, regard the Roman-era descriptions of these warbands as more of a literary trope than a precise historical account, so the institution's exact original shape remains debated. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/