Ebook: Comitatus, Individual and Honor: Studies in North Germanic Institutional Vocabulary

This study examines one area of lexico-cultural relationship for a specific period of a specific language group: it investigates an important social institution of the proto-Nordic period in light of (1) the vocabulary actually retained in the Old Scandinavian dialects, OIc., ONw., ODa., and OSw., and (2) comparative evidence from the other Germanic and Indo-European dialects. The institution examined is the 'comitatus', first described by Tacitus and thought to have survived until the Middle Ages in Scandinavia. The study comprises an investigation of the terminology for the collective and for the individual member of the group, as well as one important institutional aspect of the 'comitatus' relationship, the notion of honor.