Note 374 — MAGNA CARTA.
Reading edition
See Pike, House of Lords, 63. This term comitatus was a word of many meanings. Originally designating the “county” or “the county court,” it came to mean also the office of the earl who ruled the county, and later on it might indicate, according to context, either his titular connection with the shire, his estates, his share of the profits of justice, or his rank in the peerage.