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The '''thiufa''' was the highest division of the Visigothic army in Hispania. Based on the known decimal structure of the rest of the army, it seems likely that it was nominally composed of one thousand men. Its commander was called a '''thiufadus''' (also ''tiuphadus'').^[1]

Contents

Structure

Etymology

Thiufadus

Notes

Sources

Structure

It is unknown if the ''thiufae'' were every actually called into service or if they existed only on paper. Perhaps smaller or larger units formed the actual basis of the Visigothic army.

Etymology

The term ''thiufadus'' derives from either the Latin ''devotus'' or the Germanic ''thusundifaths''. The mechanism of the transmission via the latter is, however, considered impossible by some.^[2] The Latin ''devotus'' was generally applied by the Ostrogoths and Visigoths to high-ranking Goths in the Gothic language as ''thiwadus''.

Thiufadus

A class of officials called the ''confiscatores'' or ''exactores'' in the ''Codex Theodosianus'', ''Lex Salica'', and ''Edictum Chilperici'' are referred to in the early Visigothic laws of Theudis as ''compulsares vel executores''. In the later Visigothic laws, like the ''Liber Iudiciorum'' Reccesuinth , they go by various titles: ''compulsor exercitus'', ''servus dominicus'', or ''thiufadus''.^[3] The thiufadus was elsewhere called a ''vassus regis'' (vassal of the king) and ''agente in rebus''.^[3]
The thiufadus, however, was both a military and judicial official.^[3] His position is immediately below that of the ''comes'' (count) or ''vicarius'' (vicar): a position the same as that of the Frankish ''thunginus'' or Late Roman ''ducenarius''.^[3] There position in the army was above that of the ''centenarius'' (commander of a hundred), but it cannot be positively indentified with the position of ''millenarius'' (commander of a thousand).^[3]
The ''Liber Iudiciorum'' augmented the powers of the ''thiufadi''. In there double capacity as general and judge they were assisted by ''sayos''. The ''thiufadus'', who controlled the countryside, seems to have been weaker than the counts who controlled the ''civitates'', city districts.

Notes

1. Thompson. Contamine, 20.
2. Wiener, II, 1.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

Sources

★ Thompson, E. A. ''The Goths in Spain''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.

★ Contamine, Phillippe. ''War in the Middle Ages''. trans. Michael Jones. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1984.

★ Wiener, Leo. ''Commentary to the Germanic Laws and Medieval Documents''. London: Oxford University Press, 1915.