or fast and foot-soldiers having the speed to keep up with the cavalry. The best warriors were placed at the main battle-line along with the cavalry. Tacitus further explains the battle practices of Germanic warriors, "The battle-line is made up of wedge-shaped formations. To give ground, provided that you return to the attack, is considered good tactics rather than cowardice. They [Germanic warriors] bring back the bodies of the fallen even when a battle hangs in the balance." The comitatus has also been seen as an Indo-European concept that predates Roman times, practiced from Western Europe to China, especially among Eurasian steppe tribes. Fostering & kin In early medieval England, a lord may foster the children and relatives of allied chiefdoms, which involved sending one's sons to the court of another kinsman or lord. The son(s) would then grow up with other boys similar to their age and be taught the art of warfare. They would reside at the court from the age of seven or eight until they turned fourteen or fifteen. At the age of fourteen or fifteen, they would be granted weapons that were appropriate to their status and would serve militarily in the comitatus. Fostering helped to create loyalty among chiefdoms, often because a lord was fostering his sons at other courts or because the boys he had fostered had grown up and become lords themselves. A lord's family also often comprised large portions of a lord's warband. A retainer's relationship to his lord was also supposed to be placed above his ties to his kin. For example, in the story of "Cynewulf and Cyneheard," the comitatus was shown to be more important than ties to kinship for the members of the warrior class, warriors choosing to remain loyal to their lords even if this decision meant killing some of their own kinsmen who were on the enemy's side. Feudal developments Comitatus, being the agreement between a Germanic lord and his subservients (his Gefolge or host of followers), is a special case of clientage, and related to the practice of feudalism. Partly influenced by the Roman practice of patronage (patrocinium), - as exemplified in the Marian Reforms initiated by Gaius Marius, of a general distributing land to his officers after their retirement, as well as by the later bucellarius or private follower - the Germanic comitatus eventually evolved into a wholesale exchange between a social superior