The Comitatus And True Honor

the War-Leader is the Holy Man of the Aryan World

But it is not only in social tripartition that Indo-European socioreligious uniqueness may be located. The bipolar tension between the religious and political elements of the first function of sovereignty is an important, uniquely Indo-European characteristic, which is exemplified by following pairs of divinities: the Vedic pair of Mitra and Varuna, the Germanic pair of Odin and Tyr, and the Roman pair of Jupiter and Dius Fidius. Another “uniquely Indo-European phenomena,” which is more relevant to the subject at hand, was the existence of “a class of military specialists whose prime purpose was to exercise physical prowess, either in defense of the society or in order to conquer new territory.” 

Members of this class of military specialists usually organized themselves into a comitatus or Mannerbund, “a band of young warriors led by a chief or king which was distinct from the other strata of society (i.e., the priests and cultivators) and which in battle exhibited a remarkable recklessness and esprit de corps.” The comitatus figured “among the most prominent features of ancient Indo-European social organization.

…The centrality of the warrior figure to the Indo-European and hence the Germanic ethos has been summarized by Littleton:

“More than any single military implement, the I-E warrior band, or Mannerbund, organized around the person of a fearless leader (cf. Finn and the fianna, Indra and the Maruts), seems to have been the “secret weapon” that facilitated the I-E expansion. The warrior was thus the prop and, in many respects, the pivot of the social system.”

At the heart of the comitatus relationship lay the Germanic notion of honor or ere. However, as George Fenwick Jones advises, one must be careful that contemporary notions of honor do not obscure its Old High German (OHG) meaning: “Above all, ere should not be rendered as Ehre, except in certain specific contexts, such as in ‘show honor to’ or ‘in honor of’.” Jones refers to the Mittlelhochdeutsches Worterbuch for “the true meaning of the word ere,” which is defined there as “splendor, glory, the higher standing, partly that which arises from power and wealth (high position, superior feudal rank), party that which arises from courage and bravery.” The notion of honor in the Germanic early middle ages was focused on the external approval which one usually merited by courageous acts performed on behalf of one’s kin or one’s lord. The predominantly external focus of OHG honor, which stemmed from a desire to avoid being publically shamed, may be contrasted with the predominantly internal focus of the Christian notion of honor as a moral quality stemming primarily from a desire to avoid the feeling of guilt and the fear of punishment associated with sinfulness.

…However, it was inevitable that some degree of conflict would arise from such a strategy. The notion of Christian honor, with its goal of individual salvation, directly opposed the supremacy of the Germanic concept of the vridu, the bond of kinship which could be extended to other through an oath of loyalty, as in the comitatus. This bond included a duty to avenge a kinsmen or lord’s death, as well as the obligation to follow one’s lord into battle, even if death was imminent. To survive one’s lord in battle was disgrace, exceeded in shamefulness only by acts of cowardice and outright betrayal. 

In fact, the intensity of the comitatus bond seems to exceed even that of kinship. The force of the social pressure behind the vridu of the comitatus was so strong that, in those instances where a conflict between one’s personal salvation and loyalty to one’s lord arose, the latter tended to prevail. Based upon her survey of medieval epic literature, Clawsey concludes that “in the epics, men generally choose, however sorrowfully or reluctantly, to fight for their lords against those who personally mean more to them—their friends, their own flesh and blood, even their own salvation.”

-excerpted from The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity by James C. Russell (1994)