Royal Household

In all the medieval monarchies of western Europe the general system of government sprang from, and centred in, the royal household. The sovereign's domestics were his officers of state, and the leading dignitaries of the palace were the principal administrators of the kingdom. The royal household itself had, in its turn, grown out of an earlier and more primitive institution.

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It took its rise in the comitatus described by Tacitus, the chosen band of comites or companions who, when the Roman historian wrote, constituted the personal following, in peace as well as in war, of the Teutonic chieftain.

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