chapter 7-10.

See CHRISTIANITY: 5TH-9TH CENTURIES, and 597-800.

COLUMBIA, The District of.

See WASHINGTON (CITY): A. D. 1791.

COLUMBIA, The District of: A. D. 1850. Abolition of slave-trade in.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850.

COLUMBIA, The District of: A. D. 1867. Extension of suffrage to the Negroes.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1867 (JANUARY).

COLUMBIA, The District of: End----------

COLUMBIA, S. C., The burning of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (FEBRUARY-MARCH: THE CAROLINAS).

COLUMBIA, Tennessee., Engagement at.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE).

COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, The World's.

See CHICAGO: A. D. 1892-1893. also _C. D. Arnold, Author H. D. Higinbotham, Official Views Of The World's Columbian Exposition, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22847_

COLUMBIAN ORDER, The.

See TAMMANY SOCIETY.

COLUMBUS, Voyages of.

See AMERICA: A. D.1484-1492; 1492; 1493-1496; 1498-1505.

COMANA.

Comana, an ancient city of Cappadocia, on the river Sarus (Sihoon) was the seat of a priesthood, in the temple of Enyo, or Bellona, so venerated, so wealthy and so powerful that the chief priest of Comana counted among the great Asiatic dignitaries in the time of Cæsar.

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Rep., 'volume 5, chapter 22._

COMANCHES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SNOSHONEAN FAMILY, and KIOWAN FAMILY, and APACHE GROUP.

COMANS, The.

See KIPCHAKS; PATCHINAKS; COSSACKS, and HUNGARY: A. D. 1114-1301.

COMBAT, Judicial.

See WAGER OF BATTLE.

COMES LITTORIS SAXONICI.

See SAXON SHORE, COUNT OF.

COMES PALATII.

See PALATINE COUNTS.

COMITATUS.--COMITES.--GESITHS.--THEGNS.

Comitatus is the name given by Tacitus to a body of warlike companions among the ancient Germans "who attached themselves in the closest manner to the chieftain of their choice. They were in many cases the sons of the nobles who were ambitious of renown or of a perfect education in arms. The princeps provided for them horses, arms, and such rough equipment as they wanted. These and plentiful entertainment were accepted instead of wages. In time of war the comites fought for their chief, at once his defenders and the rivals of his prowess. ... In the times of forced and unwelcome rest they were thoroughly idle; they cared neither for farming nor for hunting, but spent the time in feasting and in sleep. ... {490} Like the Frank king, the Anglo-Saxon king seems to have entered on the full possession of what had been the right of the elective principes [to nominate and maintain a comitatus, to which he could give territory and political power]: but the very principle of the comitatus had undergone a change from what it was in the time of Tacitus, when it reappears in our historians, and it seems to have had in England a peculiar development and a bearing of special importance on the constitution. In Tacitus the comites are the personal following of the princeps; they live in his house, are maintained by his gifts, fight for him in the field. If there is little difference between companions and servants, it is because civilization has not yet introduced voluntary helplessness. ... Now the king, the perpetual princeps and representative of the race, conveys to his personal following public dignity and importance. His gesiths and thegns are among the great and wise men of the land. The right of having such dependents is not restricted to him, but the gesith of the ealdorman or bishop is simply a retainer, a pupil or a ward: the free household servants of the ceorl are in a certain sense his gesiths also. But the gesiths of the king are his guard and private council; they may be endowed by him from the folkland and admitted by him to the witenagemot. ... The Danish huscarls of Canute are a late reproduction of what the familia of the Northumbrian kings must have been in the eighth century. ... The development of the comitatus into a territorial nobility seems to be a feature peculiar to English history. ... The Lombard gasind, and the Bavarian sindman were originally the same thing as the Anglo-Saxon gesith. But they sank into the general mass of vassalage as it grew up in the ninth and tenth centuries. ... Closely connected with the gesith is the thegn; so closely that it is scarcely possible to see the difference except in the nature of the employment. The thegn seems to be primarily the warrior gesith; in this idea Alfred uses the word as translating the 'miles' of Bede. He is probably the gesith who has a particular military duty in his master's service: But he also appears as a landowner. The ceorl who has acquired five hides of land, and a special appointment in the king's hall, with other judicial rights, becomes thegn-worthy. ... And from this point, the time of Athelstan, the gesith is lost sight of, except very occasionally; the more important members of the class having become thegns, and the lesser sort sinking into the ranks of mere servants to the king. The class of thegns now widens; on the one hand the name is given to all who possess the proper quantity of land, whether or no they stand in the old relation to the king; on the other the remains of the old nobility place themselves in the king's service. The name of thegn covers the whole class which after the Conquest appears under the name of knights, with the same qualification in land and nearly the same obligations. It also carried so much of nobility as is implied in hereditary privilege. The thegn-born are contrasted with the ceorl-born; and are perhaps much the same as the gesithcund. ... Under the name of thegn are included however various grades of dignity. The class of king's thegns is distinguished from that of the medial thegns, and from a residuum that falls in rank below the latter. ... The very name, like that of the gesith, has different senses in different ages and kingdoms; but the original idea of military service runs through all the meanings of thegn, as that of personal association is traceable in all the applications of gesith."

_William Stubbs, Constitutional History of England,