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The duchies and counties of the eighth and ninth centuries were still official magistracies, the holders of which discharged the functions of imperial judges or generals. Such officers were of course men whom the kings could trust, in most cases Franks, courtiers or kinsmen, who at an earlier date would have been comites or antrustions, and who were provided for by feudal benefices.

So the Teutonic chief, with his gesitha, comites, or select band of knights, who had received from him, as Tacitus has it, the war-horse and the lance, established himself as the natural ruler and oppressor of the non-riding populations; first over the aborigines of Germany proper, tribes who seem to have been enslaved, and their names lost, before the time of Tacitus; and then over the non-riding Romans and Gauls to the South and West, and the Wendish and Sclavonic tribes to the East.

Let it be remembered that it was written at a time when Caesar was fighting on the Rhine and on the Thames, and when the expeditions of Crassus to Parthia and of Gabinius to Egypt were in preparation. The poet, as if he too expected one of the vacant posts from one of the regents, gives to two of his clients their last instructions before departure: -Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli-, etc.

King James IV lies dead there, with all his earls around him, like a Berserker warrior, his chiefs slain around him, "companions," comites indeed, in that title's original meaning.

Ces conseils ont ete suivis, et les monarchistes se sont prepares a entreprendre la lutte electorale avec une organisation de comites de departemeent, d'arrondissement et de canton, appuyes le plus souvent sur des reunions plenieres qui marquent un grand changement dans la vie politique du parti conservateur. Cette organisation se perfectionnera dans les elections memes.

These the ancient Gauls, who nearly resembled the Germans in their customs, called Ambacti; the Romans called them Comites. Over these their chief had a considerable power, and the more considerable because it depended upon influence rather than institution: influence among so free a people being the principal source of power.

The custom of enslaving captives would render pure Teutonic blood among the lower classes of a tribe the exception and not the rule; while the custom of chiefs choosing the 'thegns, 'gesitha, or 'comites, who lived and died as their companions-in-arms, from among the most valiant of the unfree, would tend to produce a mixed blood in the upper classes also, and gradually assimilate the whole mass to the manners and laws of their Teutonic lords.

Thus the titles of feudal lords were retained duce, comites, equites, milites with, all the paraphernalia of brute force which the harsh mind of northern despotism had made divine.

Immediately under these were the duces, and under those the comites, dukes and counts, titles unknown in the time of the Republic or in the higher Empire; but afterwards they extended beyond the Roman territory, and having been conferred by the Northern nations upon their leaders, they subsist to this day, and contribute to the dignity of the modern courts of Europe.

Again the weird bowed his head. He knelt upon his knee. He presented his daughter to the king. Then did Ethelfrith take her by the hand. He led her forth to his chariot of war, through the midst of his ealdormen, his comites, and his thanes, who were in great power and resistless in war, and they made obeisance to her as she passed through the midst of them. They saluted her as their queen.