What Did Comitatus Mean in the Ottonian-Salian Kingdom?

The Comitatus as a Territorial Office or a Streugrafschaft?

The scholarly controversies regarding the administrative structure of the comitatus in East Francia and the early medieval German kingdom are bound inextricably to the historiographical tradition of the New Constitutional History ( Neue Verfassungsgeschichte ) that developed in the inter-war period ^[12]. Among the key arguments made by scholars in this tradition were that the concept of “public authority” is anachronistic with regard to the German-speaking lands in the early medieval period, that the king was in a constant struggle for power with a nobility, whose lordship over land and people was autogenous, and that the great majority of people within the German kingdom were unfree, living under the protection ( German Munt ) of the nobility. There was no room in this societal model for counts exercising government authority over the king’s free subjects in geographically defined districts, despite the frequent and explicit references to just such a system in both Carolingian capitularies as well as in royal and private charters produced in East Francia and the early German kingdom. In order to address this obvious contradiction between the New Constitutional theory of societal organization and a straight-forward reading of the available source materials, scholars including Adolf Waas, Theodor Mayer, Heinrich Dannenbauer and Walter Schlesinger argued for the existence of two novel constructs, neither of which was explicitly attested in the sources.

The first of these models, which was based on nothing other than scholarly imagination, was the concept of the king’s free men ( German Königsfreie ). According to this idea, all of the free people below the level of the nobility ( Latin ingenui, liberi ), who are mentioned ubiquitously in contemporary sources, were not really free, but only enjoyed a kind of quasi freedom because of their service to the king, usually in a military capacity ^[13]. The concept of the king’s free was demonstrated to be a scholarly fantasy during the 1970s and has ceased to be relevant in the scholarship regarding the German-speaking lands for more than a generation ^[14].

The second concept developed by scholars in the New Constitutional tradition was the model of the scattered or dispersed county ( German Streugrafschaft ) in which counts exercised authority over royal estates and the royal dependents living there. Such “counties” were not public or governmental institutions in which office holders exercised royal jurisdiction over contiguous geographical spaces connected with a pagus. Rather, as the name implies, scholars in the New Constitutional tradition envisioned these Streugrafschaften as congeries of royal fiscal assets that were scattered over a wide area, often in numerous pagi, whose holders were denoted as counts. These counts, in turn, governed the direct dependents of the king who lived on these royal estates. The leading figure in developing and popularizing the model of the Streugrafschaft was Walter Schlesinger, who first suggested the concept in 1941, and subsequently reiterated this model in numerous studies, including the second edition of ‘Die Entstehung der Landesherrschaft’, published in 1964. It is this second edition that Hoffmann cites and then rejects, as mentioned above ^[15]. However, as we will see, in contrast to the concept of the Königsfreie, the model of the Streugrafschaft was not entirely without foundation despite the fact that its starting premises were not based in reality. Indeed, as we will see, there is ample evidence from the Carolingian period that authors used the term comitatus to refer to fiscal assets, which were assigned to a count who held the royal jurisdiction over a specific territorial district.

In an early challenge to Schlesinger’s conception of East Francia as a patchwork of Streugrafschaften interspersed with the allodial holdings of autogenous nobles, Wolfgang Metz demonstrated through an analysis of private charters that the Carolingian rulers successfully established a seamless network of Gaue ( pagi ) in the region of Hesse, which were stable geographically contiguous districts. In addition, Metz showed that the Carolingians established an administrative structure of counties ( comitatus ) that were superimposed upon these Gaue, although not always on a one-to-one basis. In short, Metz argued for two separate systems of regulating space in the Carolingian East, the first purely geographical, and the second administrative ^[16]. Subsequently, Hans Schulze built on the insights developed by Metz and argued that the Carolingians successfully developed a system of geographically contiguous administrative jurisdictions throughout East Francia, with counts serving as the primary royal officials ^[17]. Schulze’s findings were confirmed in the Rhine-Main region, Bavaria, and Lower Lotharingia by Franz Staab, Peter Schmid, and Ulrich Nonn, respectively ^[18].

Schulze’s views regarding the seamless nature of the Carolingian comital system in East Francia were challenged, however, by Michael Borgolte with regard to the regions of Swabia that were located south of the Bodensee and west of the Schwarzwald. Borgolte argued that a close analysis of the presence or absence of the phrase in pago X in comitatu comitis Y in private charters, principally those preserved at the monastery of St. Gall, made it possible to distinguish between those districts where there were counts holding royal offices, and those regions in which an autogenous nobility exercised lordship ( German Herrschaft ) in a manner consistent with the models set out in the tradition of the New Constitutional history. In addition, Borgolte argued for the existence of distinct royal fiscal districts, which were treated as counties, i. e. Streugrafschaften ^[19]. In a pair of detailed review articles, however, Hans Schulze demonstrated the numerous internal inconsistencies in Borgolte’s analysis of the comital structure in Swabia ^[20]. Schulze’s critique of Borgolte’s claims regarding the supposed existence of allodial counties held by autogenous nobles and Streugrafschaften largely have been sustained ^[21].

Neither Schulze nor Borgolte, however, addressed directly the semantic field of the term comitatus as they both took for granted its basic meaning as the jurisdiction of a comes, whether this was a governmental office, an allodial lordship, or a fiscal district. In a wide-ranging review of the scholarly literature dealing with the general problem of the so-called Grafschaftsverfassung, Thomas Zotz emphasized this lacuna in the work of both Schulze and Borgolte, and specifically criticized them for taking such a narrow view of the range of meanings that attached to the term comitatus. Zotz argued that scholars had to integrate into their discussion of counts and counties an understanding that the term comitatus in the Carolingian period could refer to the office and duties of the comes, to the district in which the comes exercised his office ( ministerium ), and also to the assets that were attached to the ministerium of the count that gave him the economic wherewithal to carry out his duties ^[22]. Moreover, drawing on Carolingian capitularies as well as charters, Zotz was able to show that many counts in Carolingian Empire held royal fiscal assets outside of the districts in which they exercised their jurisdiction, and the term comitatus frequently was used to denote these assets ^[23]. In sum, Zotz substantiated Schlesinger’s suggestion, discussed above, that the grant of a comitatus to a church might entail the transfer of fiscal assets rather than an office or a district over which a count exercised his jurisdiction. However, the elimination of the construct of the Königsfreie and the generally accepted view that Carolingian counts exercised judicial authority over the king’s free subjects within a specific district meant that Schlesinger’s conception of a Carolingian Streugrafschaft, as detailed above, was untenable.

It is notable that in his treatment of the question of the meaning of the term comitatus in the Ottonian-Salian period, Hoffmann did not address the scholarly controversy set out here, or Zotz’s conclusions regarding the variety of meanings attached to comitatus in the Carolingian period, although he does cite Hans Schulze’s basic study from 1973. Rather, starting from his a priori position that comitatus necessarily meant only jurisdiction ( bannum ), particularly with regard to judicial affairs, Hoffmann asserted, as discussed above, that the Ottonian-Salian comitatus was fundamentally different than that found under the Carolingians. Whereas the former were territorially compact districts, largely coterminous with the pagus, in Hoffmann’s view the comitatus of the eleventh and early twelfth century frequently consisted of scattered elements. Ironically, in making this argument Hoffmann revived Schlesinger’s model of the Streugrafschaft, but now conceptualized this scattered county as being comprised of the count’s bannum, principally judicial in nature, over individuals living within disparate territories as contrasted with Schlesinger’s view of the count’s delegated Herrschaft over royal fiscal assets and concomitantly over the royal dependents living on these lands ^[24]. The difference between the ideas of Hoffmann and Schlesinger rests fundamentally on the basis of the authority held by the count. For Hoffmann, this authority was public in nature. By contrast, Schlesinger rejected the distinction between public and private, which he believed was not available in the tenth century. In his view, the authority of the count derived from the ruler’s lordship ( Herrschaft ), which was not distinguishable from the Herrschaft exercised by other magnates. It remains to be tested whether Hoffmann’s understanding of the Ottonian-Salian comitatus can be sustained on the basis of the relevant source material.

The Use of Comitatus to Denote a Territorial Office

It is well understood that in the Carolingian and Ottonian periods, the principle duties of counts were to provide a forum for the resolution of legal conflicts among the king’s subjects as well as to mobilize the men of their comitatus to undertake a range of military responsibilities on behalf of the ruler ^[25]. To carry out these duties, it was necessary both for the count to know which individuals lived under his jurisdiction, and for those individuals to know under whose comital jurisdiction they lived. The fundamental logic of the territorialization of the count’s office under these circumstances was illuminated by scholars treating regions throughout East Francia, as discussed above ^[26]. As we have seen already, the territorial expression of the count’s jurisdiction is made abundantly clear in the ubiquitous appearance in both royal and private charters of the expression in pago X in comitatu comitis Y.

In this context, a number of the comitatus granted by Ottonian and Salian rulers to churches, which are treated by Hoffmann in his study, unmistakably deal with the transfer of comital authority, that is the bannum, within a defined territorial space. In 1007, for example, King Henry II issued a charter on behalf of the bishopric of Cambrai granting the comitatum Chameracensem to Bishop Erluin ( 995–1012 ) ^[27]. It should be emphasized here that, although Hoffmann does not specify this point, the grant by Henry concerned the territorial district outside of the walls of the city, i. e. the pagus of Cambrai. Already in 948, Otto I had granted comital authority within the walls of Cambrai to Bishop Fulbert ( 934–956 ) ^[28]. The two keys to interpreting Henry II’s charter as the grant of a territorial office are the statement by the king that Erluin and his successors subsequently were to hold royal jurisdiction, i. e. pannos, and even more importantly that they were to have the authority to choose the count, i. e. comitem eligendi within this comitatus ^[29]. The entire focus in this charter concerns the transfer of the administrative authority of the comital office. In 948, the impetus for the grant of comital authority by Otto I had been the ongoing conflict between Bishop Fulbert and the current count Isaac ^[30]. By contrast, in 1007, the delegation of comital authority to Bishop Erluin away from Count Arnulf of Valenciennes appears to have been the need to consolidate authority over military matters in the district around Cambrai in the hands of an official on site ^[31].

Another clear example of the transfer of a territorial comital jurisdiction can be seen in a charter issued by Otto III on behalf of the diocese of Würzburg in 1000. In this case, the king granted to Bishop Henry I ( 996–1018 ), “the comitatus called Waldsassen and Rangau, located in the province which is called East Francia.” ^[32] Otto’s grant of these two comitatus included all legal jurisdiction, which is described fulsomely as “every required judicial assembly, and our complete jurisdiction, and imperial law, and judgement of judgments.” ^[33] The king added that “we are not excepting anything regarding these matters ( judicial affairs ) which counts or any mortal was accustomed to have with regard to judicial assemblies.” ^[34] Finally, Otto added that Bishop Henry and his successors “shall appoint the counts whom they wish.” ^[35] Just as at Cambrai, it is clear that Otto was delegating to Bishop Henry royal judicial authority over discrete and contiguous territorial units, namely comitatus covering the pagi of Rangau and Waldsassen, and also the power to appoint whomever he wished as count within these territories.

A third clear example of the grant of comital authority to a bishop within a specified territory appears in Otto I’s charter on behalf of the bishop of Chur, issued in 960. In this instance, the king granted to Bishop Hartpert ( 951–972 ) “the valley of Bergell, and entire extent of authority in judicial assemblies pertaining up to this time to this comitatus.” ^[36] The king then added a considerable range of fiscal revenues, including a variety of taxes and tolls, as well as the beneficia held by the previous count named Bernhard ^[37]. Otto II renewed this grant almost verbatim in 976. However, Otto III expanded upon the grant by adding an immunity from comital jurisdiction to all of the assets of the diocese in the valley of Bergell, ostensibly to bring the rights of Chur in line with those of other dioceses in the kingdom, i. e. sicut mos est in aliis episcopiis nostri regni ^[38]. Subsequent renewals of these royal privileges to Chur by Henry II, Conrad II, Henry III, and Henry IV reiterate both the status of Chur as a comitatus and the provision of an immunity from comital jurisdiction ^[39]. Curiously, Hoffmann himself did not see this as a ‘normal’ grant of a county because the charter distinguished between what he describes as Hoheitsrechte ( sovereign rights ), particularly judicial authority, and also a variety of “economic incomes”.

The Use of Comitatus to Denote Fiscal Assets

Although Hoffmann insisted that the term comitatus always meant bannum and that the transfer of a comitatus to a church necessarily entailed the transfer of comital judicial jurisdiction, a number of the examples he discusses cannot be understood in this way on the basis of a straight-forward reading of the texts. The misidentification of comitatus as the judicial bannum over specific territories is quite clear, for example, in a series of grants made to Bishop Meinwerk of Paderborn ( 1009–1036 ). In a charter issued in 1011, King Henry stated that he was granting “the comitatus that count Hahold held while he was living, which was situated in these places.” ^[40] There follows a list of seven pagi names and nine property names. Following the list, Henry assured Bishop Meinwerk and his successors that “they shall have from this time forward free authority to do whatever is pleasing to them with regard to this comitatus and all of its assets ( utilitates ), for their own benefit and or the benefit of the church.” ^[41] Notably, there is no mention in this charter of any royal authority connected with the comitatus, i. e. bannum nor is there any mention that the bishop of Paderborn was to have the authority to name his own count.

Another, similar grant, issued in May 1021, does not survive independently, but was copied into the vita of Bishop Meinwerk by his biographer ^[42]. According to the transcribed charter, Henry II granted to Meinwerk a certain comitatus previously held by Count Liudolf, with its main seat in Imbshausen, which was located across five pagi. The grant of this comitatus was made under the condition that neither Meinwerk nor any of his successors would grant it to a member of the bishopric’s military household ( miles ) or someone from outside of the diocese as a beneficium. Rather, “a ministerialis of this same church, who was there at the time, was to be in charge of this comitatus and was to make use of its assets to support the reconstruction of this church, whose walls were to be supported and whose roofs were to be repaired.” ^[43]

In discussing the first of these grants Hoffmann argues that the comitatus of the now dead Count Hahold was a Streugrafschaft, albeit one about which no clear conclusions have been reached about either its composition or origin ^[44]. With regard to the second of these grants, Hoffmann argues that the requirement that a ministerialis of Paderborn holds this comitatus refers to an office ( German Amt ), while recognizing that the purpose of the grant was to provide funding for the reconstruction of the cathedral church at Paderborn ^[45]. Of considerable importance in both grants by Henry II is that neither makes any mention of the transfer of the royal bannum to the bishop nor of the right of the bishop to appoint a count to exercise royal authority within the comitatus, i. e. points that are emphasized in the charters for Cambrai, Würzburg, and Chur. Instead, both charters emphasize the control that the bishops were to have over the resources ( utilitates ) that were being granted in the context of the transfer of the comitatus. The meaning of utilitates in this context is made quite explicit in the 1021 grant, in which the author of the ‘Vita Meinwerki’ stressed that the purpose of the grant was to provide resources for the reconstruction of the cathedral church.

This emphasis on the utilitates of the comitatus also can be seen in two other charters issued by Henry II and Conrad II on behalf of Paderborn in 1021 and 1033, respectively. In the first of these grants Henry stated that Meinwerk was to receive the comitatus which Count Dodico held, while he was alive, in unnamed places in the pagi of Hessigau, Nettegau, and Itergau such that he and his successors would have the full power over this comitatus and could do whatever they wished with its utilitates for the benefit of themselves and for the benefit of the church ^[46]. No mention is made of the royal bannum or of appointing a count. Twelve years later, Conrad returned to Meinwerk the comitatus previously held by Dodico, which had in the meantime been taken from Paderborn ^[47].

In his charter, Conrad explained that while still new at being king ( rudes adhuc in regno ) he had been persuaded by the unjust advice of the archbishop of Mainz to take away the comitatus from Paderborn. Now, however, he was going to return the entire comitatus to Meinwerk. The comitatus is described as once being held by Count Bernhard, which may permit the conclusion that this comitatus first had passed through the hands of this count before ending up with Archbishop Bardo of Mainz ( 1031–1051 ). The comitatus being returned to Meinwerk was somewhat enhanced over that previously held by Dodico, in that it included places in the pagus of Brukterergau as well as the pagi of Hessigau, Nettegau, and Itergau. Of particular importance in the present context, however, is Conrad II’s insistence that in order to avoid any conflict between Mainz and Paderborn, he intended to make up for the loss of the comitatus once held by Bernhard by giving to Archbishop Bardo the comitatus which was located in the pagus of Cluuinga. To this end, the king ensured “that neither of the churches would suffer a loss in any way with regard to the aforementioned properties that were subject to an inquest on their behalf.” ^[48]

The use of an inquest in this manner to ensure that churches did not suffer any material losses while engaged in an exchange of properties dates back to the reign of Louis the Pious. The Carolingian and Ottonian rulers routinely conducted inquests to determine whether the properties being offered by the two sides were equal in value ^[49]. The emphasis here by Conrad II on avoiding any losses to either of the churches, and his explicit mention of the fact that properties had been subject to an inquest, i. e. rebus inquisitis, makes clear once again that the comitatus held by Meinwerk, Dodico, Bernhard, Mainz, and then Meinwerk again consisted of fiscal assets and was not a Streugrafschaft comprising the royal bannum over disparate pieces of three or four pagi.

Similar to the situation at Paderborn, the grant of comitatus by Ottonian and Salian kings to the bishopric of Hildesheim also consisted of fiscal assets rather than the reassignment of comital authority over specific districts to the bishop. The first of these grants, originally made by Otto III, in a now lost charter, and reconfirmed by Henry II in 1013 again specifically focuses on the resources that were being transferred to the bishop in order to facilitate a large-scale undertaking, in this case maintaining and garrisoning a fortress. According to the narratio of the charter, Bishop Bernward ( 993–1022 ) had sought special permission ( ius speciale ) from Otto III to build a fortification along the Aller River to defend his diocese against attacks by the Slavs ^[50]. Otto had responded by assigning to Hildesheim the “comitatus located around this fortification in the pagus of Astuala, which had been held by Dietrich, once the palatine count, and after him his son Sirus,” and did so on the basis of beneficiarium ius, which simply means with the rights of one who holds an asset as a benefice ^[51]. Henry, in turn, confirmed the grant of the comitatus as a beneficium and added, “no one with any judicial authority shall presume to do anything in this property against the command or will of this one ( Bernward ). Rather, let whomever he wishes have and administer this same comitatus by our grace.” ^[52]

The status of this comitatus as consisting of fiscal assets rather than the royal bannum over an unspecified territory is made clear by several factors. First, the whole purpose of the grant was to provide assets to Bishop Bernward so that he could build, maintain, and garrison a fortification. The use of royal resources in this manner was commonplace under the Ottonians, and very large numbers of royal strongholds were supported by extensive fiscal assets ^[53]. Second, and just as importantly, Henry’s grant of an immunity from external authority, i. e. nullus iudiciaria potestate is clear evidence that the king was not assigning the comital bannum over this district to the bishop because counts did not need an immunity from comital authority. In this context, the grant of the judicial bannum would have provided the bishop with an additional source of income through the fredus paid at the placita under Bernward’s supervision. However, the lack of a reference to the transfer of the bannum rules out the concomitant transfer of this source of income. Third, scholars have not been able to identify a territorial comitatus within the pagus of Astuala. The concomitant effort to transpose the supposed territorial comitatus around the fortress of Mundburg to the nearby pagus of Flutwiddegau is based on nothing other than special pleading regarding the ostensible family connections between the count palatine Dietrich and Bishop Bernward, which are, at best, exceptionally tenuous ^[54]. In this context, the phrase, “let whomever he wishes have and administer this same comitatus by our grace” is not a license from the king for Bernward to appoint a count, as Hoffmann would have it, but rather, as seen above with regard to Bishop Meinwerk of Paderborn, a royal grant to the bishop to pick his own man to administer these fiscal assets, and perhaps also to serve as the commander of the castellum.

The next surviving grant of a comitatus to Hildesheim took place in 1051, when Henry III reassigned to Bishop Azelin ( 1044–1054 ) the comitatum, which had been held by Brun, his son Liudolf, who was also the step-brother of King Henry, and Liudolf’s son Eckbert, all of whom were named as comites. This comitatus, which was labelled a beneficium, was located in six named pagi, and also within eleven named publicis aeclesiarum parrochiis ^[55]. Hoffmann describes this as a large, but widely scattered county ^[56]. However, once more there is no mention in the charter of Azelin receiving the bannum, any mention of comital duties, such as providing for the judicial needs of the people living in this “county”, nor any mention of the bishop naming a count to exercise this authority. Moreover, it is not clear what it would mean to have the royal bannum as a count in “public parishes of the church”. It seems rather more likely that the reference here is to the governmental possession of the tithes of these churches, and consequently to revenues rather than the count’s military or judicial bannum ^[57].

We see the same problem with interpreting comitatus as the royal bannum in the grant made by Henry IV to Bishop Hezilo of Hildesheim ( 1054–1079 ) in 1068. As his father had done earlier, Henry IV transferred to Hildesheim a comitatum, in this case held previously by Count Frederick and his son Conrad as a beneficium from the king, which was located in three named pagi as well as in four named publicis aecclesiarum parroecochiis ^[58]. Once more there is no mention of any of the factors that made clear the grant of the royal bannum over a territory to Cambrai, Würzburg, and Chur. But Henry does insist that Hezilo and his successor shall enjoy usufruct ( fruantur ) of this comitatus without any interference from anyone. The lack of reference to the exercise of any kind of authority, the absence of any reference to naming a count, and the emphasis on usufruct all point toward the identification of this particular beneficium of a comitatus as productive assets.

Yet another clear example of the grant of fiscal assets under the name comitatus can be seen in Henry III’s charter on behalf of the bishopric of Basel in May 1041. The narratio of the charter emphasizes the king’s concern about the poverty of the bishopric, stating “because we have seen the excessively humble and tenuous state of the bishopric of the church of Basel, we have determined to console its poverty to a certain extent from the assets in our legal possession.” ^[59] Thus, the entire context of the grant of the comitatus concerns the provision of royal property to alleviate the church’s poverty rather than the grant of royal authority over a territorial district. The grant, itself, consisted of “a certain comitatus of our property called Augusta, located in the pagi of Augustgau and Sisgau.” ^[60] Henry III then added that the grant of the comitatus came with all of its appurtenances, i. e. cum omni pertinencia such that Bishop Dietrich ( 1041–1055 ) and his successors shall have the free authority of holding it or granting it as a benefice or of doing anything else that they wished that would be of benefit to the church ^[61].

At every step along the way, the charter makes clear that the comitatus consisted of assets, that is proprietas, which were intended to alleviate the poverty of the church. Hoffmann accepts that the wording of the charter points to its identification as “district of fiscal goods” but then goes on to add that “it probably was largely coterminous with a judicial district.” ^[62] However, there is nothing in this charter that points to the granting of judicial authority to the bishops of Basel or any other aspects of the comital bannum. Moreover, as Hoffmann, himself, recognizes, the comital authority in Sisgau was not held by the bishop, but rather by Count Rudolf, as seen in Henry III’s confirmation in June 1048 of the possessions previously granted to the cathedral chapter ^[63].

The examples adduced thus far show the use of the term comitatus either to denote the grant of the royal bannum over a specific district or to identify fiscal assets that previously had been assigned to a count to support the performance of his duties. In some cases, however, we can see that the term is used in both ways at the same time. In his history of the archbishopric of Bremen, Adam discussed the jealousy of Archbishop Adalbert I ( 1043–1072 ) regarding the authority enjoyed by Bishop Adalbero of Würzburg ( 1045–1085 ) such that he “had no equal within his diocese as he held, personally, all of the comitatus of his diocese and the bishop even ruled the ducatus of his province.” ^[64] Although this was an exaggeration, the bishops of Würzburg had received the comitatus, in the sense of the comital bannum, over two pagi from Otto III, as seen above, and clearly still held them in the late eleventh century when Adam wrote. As a consequence, according to Adam, Archbishop Adalbert then sought to gain for his church “all of the comitatus that seemed to have any jurisdiction within his diocese.” ^[65] Thus far, Adam is using comitatus to denote the bannum assigned to a count to exercise authority over the people within a specific district. This sense of the term is quite clear from Adam’s decision to identify the comitatus with the term iurisditio.

However, at this point both Adam and the royal charter issued by Henry IV’s regents in 1057, including Adalbert himself, appear to use comitatus in a different sense, namely the resources assigned to a count. According to Adam, Fivilgau, which the archbishop acquired from the king, had been held up to this time by Duke Gottfried of Saxony and then by his son Count Ekbert. The comitatus in Fivilgau was supposed to have paid out 1.000 pounds of silver each year – the word used is pensio – of which amount the count paid 200 pounds of silver to the church and became a member of the church’s military establishment ( miles ) ^[66]. The amount of money involved is likely exaggerated to a considerable extent, and it is not clear from the text whether this was the situation that prevailed before Adalbert obtained the comitatus or was the situation once he obtained the comitatus, which Adam asserts the archbishop held for ten years ^[67]. What is clear is that Adam has moved from discussing the iurisditio associated with the comitatus to the value of the pensio that was associated with the comitatus.

Separately, the charter issued in Henry IV’s name states that the king granted to Bremen and Archbishop Adalbert “a certain comitatus belonging to us, namely in the pagi of Hunesga and Fivilga with all of their associated rights and assets, just as our ancestors had them [ … ] for the use of the church.” ^[68] The discussion in this charter appears to be much more connected to Adam’s reference to the 1.000 pounds of silver that comes from the pensio of this comitatus than it does to Adam’s discussion of the iurisditio over the pagus. The remainder of the charter reinforces this impression, as the royal grant also included a license for Archbishop Adalbert to establish two markets within this same comitatus with associated mints and tolls ^[69]. Finally, and crucially, the charter grants an immunity from any external judicial official ( iudex ) or fiscal official ( exactor ), who are forbidden to oppose the archbishop’s will ( libitum ) with regard to this royal grant. The grant of an immunity from external authority would not have been necessary for Adalbert were he holding a comital office. However, such an immunity would be of benefit to protect the assets and rights just granted to the archbishop from external harassment.

The Use of Comitatus to Denote a Count’s Duties

As seen above with regard to the grants of the comitatus to Chur and Würzburg, Otto III specifically noted in his charters that the bishops henceforth were to exercise judicial authority within specific territorial limits. As such, the grant of the comitatus can be understood to have referred both to the transfer of the bannum associated with the count’s office as well as to a specific comital function, i. e. the provision of justice. In his charter for the bishopric of Paderborn, issued in January 1001, Otto III renewed and confirmed “the comitatus that currently was possessed by the see over five named pagi.” ^[70] This grant was repeated almost verbatim by Henry II just two years later ^[71]. In his discussion of this charter, Hoffmann found it necessary to explain why, according to his model, Paderborn had the royal bannum over these five pagi in 1001, when Henry II and Conrad II ostensibly made new grants to Paderborn of the comitatus in these same five pagi, as discussed above. Rather than dealing with this apparent contradiction, Hoffmann concluded that “[ p ]robably one should not press the wording of the charters too hard in this case.” ^[72] Notably, he cites the work of Peter von Polenz, who argued that this charter revealed the existence of a Streugrafschaft under the control of the bishop of Paderborn ^[73]. On this basis Hoffmann concludes that in this case, the comitatus and the pagus no longer aligned, and so the grant of the comitatus in these five pagi in 1001 did not prohibit the later grant of different comitatus in these same pagi by later kings ^[74].

However, when we consider in detail the clauses that follow the statement that the king has granted the comitatus in these five pagi to Paderborn, the need to contrive a Streugrafschaft in 1001 is eliminated. The complete statement of the grant is as follows:

“We renew and confirm the comitatus now held by the see over the pagi called Paterga, Aga, Trevesga, Auga, and Soretfelt for the tithes pertaining to the monastery of Corvei and with regard to property of clerics, if any of them should die without an heir, and this same church is also granted the comitatus with regard to three mansi in Duisburg and in Dortmund and with regard to the forestis which begins at the Dalke River and heads through Ardennam and Senne up to the road which leads to Heerse.” ^[75]

The text makes quite explicit that the comitatus in question relates to four different matters. The first of these consists of the tithes within these five pagi that are owed to the monastery of Corvey, located about 50 kilometers to the east of Paderborn. In this context, Otto II and Otto III previously had granted a number of privileges to Corvey regarding the right to collect its own tithes as well as broad-based rights to all of the tithes within specific pagi ^[76]. The comitatus in this case appears to be the authority over the collection of the tithes. The second matter addressed here is the right to the property of those clerics who died without heirs. This property, under normal circumstances, would go to the king following a judicial process, as is evidenced by royal charters that discuss the acquisition of properties in this manner ^[77]. Consequently, comitatus in this case appears to refer to the duty, normally performed by the count, to hold a legal proceeding to determine the rightful disposition of the property of the deceased cleric. Given the nature of the privilege from Otto III to Paderborn, it seems likely that the property acquired from clerics without heirs would go to this church. The third matter involves the straight-forward disposition of property, i. e. the three mansi which were held as part of a comitatus, that is the assets assigned to support the performance of the comital office. The final matter treated in this charter concerns authority within a royal preserve, denoted as a forestis, where usufruct rights over timber, pastage, and hunting were reserved to the king unless granted to a recipient through a special license ^[78]. In this case, the term comitatus is being used as a synonym for bannum, thus giving to Paderborn the license to exercise royal rights within this particular forestis. These four matters do not pertain to the broad exercise of comital authority over the five pagi in question, nor do they add up to a Streugrafschaft within these five pagi in which the bishops of Paderborn or their designated officials acted as counts over the populations living in unspecified communities. Rather, in this charter, Otto III granted to the bishop of Paderborn a number of delineated responsibilities, which otherwise would have been performed by counts, as well as certain material benefits that were associated with these responsibilities.

Comitatus and Immunities

In his discussion of the grants of comitatus to bishoprics and monasteries, Hoffmann touches only briefly on the topic of immunities over the course of his lengthy article before coming to the conclusion that a comitatus was necessarily a Bannimmunität. However, Hoffmann does not address at any point the pressing issue of the distinction between an immunity held by a church from comital authority and the grant of a comital bannum to a church. In the first case, the dependents as well as the assets of bishops, abbots, and abbesses were freed from any interventions by comital authorities, or others holding the royal bannum, often characterized as quilibet iudiciaria potestate constitutus. As a consequence, it was the church that received the profits of justice associated, above all, with the fredus as well as fines resulting from the failure to perform military service and other royal duties, including the provision of hospitality, the feeding of the horses of parties traveling on the king’s business, the maintenance of roads and fortifications, as well as other munera publica ^[79]. It is in this context that both Ottonian and Salian kings frequently affirmed that the newly acquired properties of churches would also be included within the immunity that the bishopric or monastery already held ^[80]. As seen above, a number of grants of comitatus, in the sense of fiscal assets, also included the grant of an immunity from comital authority.

Crucially, under the Ottonians and Salians, the grant of an immunity to a church did not give the bishop, abbot, or abbess any authority over any individual, who was not already a dependent of the church. These individuals, as well as their properties, remained under the jurisdiction, that is the bannum, of the count in whose comitatus they lived ^[81]. The count had extensive responsibilities within his comitatus. He had to hold numerous placita to hear the cases of the king’s free subjects. This duty, in turn, required the recruitment and supervision of subordinate officials, i. e. vicarii/centenarii to hold lower-level legal assemblies, as well as maintaining relationships with the leading men at the local level for the purpose of recruiting scabini to serve as fact finders ^[82]. Counts were responsible as well for the mobilization of men within the pagus to serve on expeditionary campaigns, for ensuring that local fortifications and transportation networks were maintained, and also for leading the men of his district in defense against outside attacks. Other duties included cooperating with fiscal officials and sometimes taking over responsibility for collecting taxes and tolls as well as for the protection of royal forestae ^[83].

So the question naturally arises why bishops or abbots would have wanted to take on these additional responsibilities, particularly given Hoffmann’s own conclusion, discussed above, that the grants of comitatus to churches by the Ottonians and the Salians did not provide the basis for the ecclesiastical polities that began to emerge in the twelfth century. Certainly, the assumption of the comital office brought with it financial benefits, i. e. the comitatus in the sense of fiscal assets assigned to counts as well as the fredus collected from comital placita. However, many churches obtained these types of assets without the bishops, counts, or abbesses performing the duties of counts. In his examination of the forged immunities produced by Bishops Hildebold ( 978–998 ) and Burchard ( 1000–1025 ) of Worms, Thomas Kohl sheds light on this question, making clear that prelates were concerned not only about obtaining resources but also about protecting them from interference by secular authorities and gaining an advantage over their ecclesiastical competitors ^[84].

The initial tranche of forgeries produced by Bishop Hildebold were intended to address two concerns. The first of these was to extend the immunity of the church from comital intervention in judicial affairs to a broad district in the region around Wimpfen in Elsenzgau, where Worms already possessed significant property. Notably, Hildebold was very concerned to define the specific territorial spaces in which the count’s bannum was prohibited because, contrary to the suggestion of Hoffmann, the jurisdiction of the local count, in this case the Salian Otto, ran throughout the pagus. Secondly, Hildebold’s forgeries were intended to buttress and expand the rights of Worms in Lobdengau, where the monastery of Lorsch possessed extensive properties, and to gain control over much of the Odenwald ^[85].

Henry II’s grant of two comitatus, in the sense of the royal bannum, in the two pagi of Lobdengau and Wingartheiba, to Bishop Burchard of Worms in 1012 can be understood in this context. The conflict between Worms and Lorsch over properties and rights in these two pagi, and particularly over usufruct of the Odenwald, dated back to the reign of Otto I, who issued a formal finding in favor of Worms in 970, although this charter subsequently was illicitly modified by Bishop Hildebold ^[86]. In 1007, Henry II issued a confirmation of this now modified charter, which codified the expanded rights of the church of Worms in Lobdengau ^[87]. In 1011, Bishop Burchard sought and obtained from Henry II comital authority in Lobdengau as well as the neighboring pagus of Wingartheiba, located to the east, where the monastery of Lorsch held extensive properties ^[88]. Burchard’s perspicacity in gaining comital authority in these two pagi paid dividends the next year as Lorsch sought to use documentary records of its own to assert its property rights in Lobdengau. When King Henry commanded Count Poppo of Lobdengau to undertake an inquest into the claims of the two churches, Poppo did so under the ultimate authority of Bishop Burchard. It is not surprising that although Abbot Poppo of Lorsch ( 1006–1018 ) had a representative at the inquest, Burchard was able to vindicate his claims ^[89].

The effort by Bishop Burchard to gain comital authority in the two pagi of Lobdengau and Wingartheiba was not driven by a desire to establish an ecclesiastical territorial principality of the type seen in a fully developed form in the thirteenth century. Indeed, the church of Worms under Hildebold and Burchard did not seek to gain the comital office within Wormsgau, itself, but rather simply sought to strengthen their immunity against comital intervention in the judicial affairs of their dependents ^[90]. The purpose of seeking the comitatus in the pagi of Lobdengau and Wingartheiba was to strengthen the position of the church of Worms vis-à-vis the claims of the monastery of Lorsch.

When we consider the small number of clear examples of the grant of comitatus, in the sense of the royal bannum, discussed above, it is also possible to discern factors other than a desire of the prelate to create a territorial principality. In the case of Chur, the episcopal seat as well as the valley of Bergell in which it was located, were all part of the larger administrative district of Raetia, which had a lengthy history dating back to the period of Charlemagne ^[91]. The initial grant in favor of Chur by Otto I, made in 951, is not discussed by Hoffmann but illuminates in important ways the subsequent history of the bishops’ exercise of the royal bannum. In 951, as he was preparing for his first Italian campaign, Otto transferred to Bishop Hartpert of Chur ( 951–972 ) “the entire fisc from this same comitatus of Chur, just as this fisc had pertained up to this point to the royal treasury and royal power, with all legal authority to undertake inquests with regard to this same fisc.” ^[92] Otto took these assets from the control of his son Liudolf, who was the duke of Swabia as well as count in Raetia. This was the first in a lengthy series of grants to Chur that were meant to facilitate the movement of royal armies through the Alps to Italy and to deal with Muslim raiders, who had established themselves La Garde-Freinet ( Fraxinetum ), near Saint-Tropez ^[93].

Otto’s substantial expansion of the grant of fiscal assets as well as regalian rights to Bishop Hartpert in 960, discussed above, took place in the context of the preparations for his second Italian campaign ( 961 ) ^[94]. Thus, the grant of comital authority to the bishop of Chur can be understood as an element of royal military policy, which enabled Hartpert to harness all of the resources of the district, including not only those of the church, but also of the broader population within the valley of Bergell. The king benefitted from being able to have a single individual in charge of logistics for the royal army. This is similar to the logic, as discussed above, for Henry II’s decision to reassign the comitatus of the pagus around the walls of Cambrai to Bishop Erluin. By contrast, Archbishop Adalbert’s efforts to gain control over both the fiscal resources assigned to counts within his diocese and also the iurisditio within these comitatus, as Adam of Bremen put it, had nothing to do with royal military objectives or, indeed, royal interests at all. Adalbert was focused on the establishment of the independent power of the archbishopric and also on the expansion of the power of his family. However, his actions in this regard were possible only because the archbishop served as a regent for the young Henry IV. Adalbert found no ecclesiastical imitators until the twelfth century ^[95].

Conclusions

Hartmut Hoffmann’s remarkable finding that the grant of comitatus to churches by the Ottonians and Salians did not provide the basis for later ecclesiastical polities opens the way toward reconsidering the nature of the comital office under the later Ottonians, and particularly under the Salians. I have argued elsewhere for the fundamentally public and governmental nature of the comital office under the Ottonians, with an emphasis on the continuation of Carolingian-style duties of counts through the end of Henry II’s reign in 1024. In this context, we find in both royal and private charters throughout the Ottonian period the ubiquitous use of the phrase in pago X in comitatu comitis Y to define the location of a property ^[96]. It was this same formula, combined with the assumption of the territoriality of the comital office in Carolingian capitularies as well as in contemporary narrative sources, which led scholars including Metz, Schmid, and Nonn to argue for the frequent, although not universal, overlap of the territorially contiguous pagus or pagi with the bannum of a particular count within his comitatus.

It is notable, therefore, that we see the same ubiquitous use of the formula in pago X in comitatu comitis Y in Salian royal charters as well as in private charters produced during the eleventh and early twelfth century. Hoffmann’s argument for the break-down in the connection between the pagus and bannum of a single count under the Ottonians and Salians was based entirely on his assumption that grant of a comitatus necessarily entailed the grant of the royal bannum over a district. Thus, a comitatus that spread over multiple pagi must have entailed, in Hoffmann’s view, the existence of a Streugraftschaft. But, as we have seen, there is no necessity to interpret comitatus in this way, and consequently no basis, at least in cases presented by Hoffmann, for seeing a decoupling of the pagus and the count’s office. Rather, the term comitatus appears to have the same broad semantic field under the Ottonians and Salians as it did under the Carolingians, as demonstrated by Zotz.

A related issue, which Hoffmann does not address, concerns the hundreds of grants of immunities to churches by the Ottonian and Salian kings, which detail their freedom from comital intervention primarily in judicial affairs, but also in regard to matters such as the collection of tolls and taxes, the mobilization of labor for construction projects, and the mobilization of a church’s dependents for military service ^[97]. As scholars such as Walter Goffart and Sandy Murray made clear decades ago, immunities from comital authority, which bishops, abbots, and abbesses routinely sought up through the end of the eleventh century, only make sense if counts exercised a broad-based territorial jurisdiction ^[98].

Yet another issue that ought to impinge upon our understanding of the structure and nature of the comital office during the long eleventh century concerns the duty of the king to provide for the judicial needs of his free subjects, and their obligations in turn to the res publica under the leadership of the king. As discussed above, the theory of the king’s free ( Königsfreie ) was rendered obsolete by the 1970s. However, historians of the German kingdom, even half a century later, have not reintegrated the free into their analyses of politics and administration. The story remains focused on the efforts of ecclesiastical and secular magnates to secure the futures of their families ^[99].

The origins of these magnate families, which were becoming established in the first half of the twelfth-century, often are traced to the very same transfers of comitatus from a count to a church treated in detail by Hoffmann ^[100]. But the story of how we get to the new-style government and politics of the Staufen era remains murky. When we remove the assumptions of the New Constitutional historians regarding autogenous lordship, an inherent conflict between ruler and nobility, the supposed anachronism of public authority, and the political irrelevance of the free population, it becomes possible to ask both when and how the German kingdom moved from a system of office-holding counts exercising the governmental authority of the king to a quilt work of largely autonomous lordships, which characterized the German kingdom from the later twelfth century to Napoleon’s conquests of the nineteenth. These are questions worthy of scholarly interest.