The Mesedi was the personal
bodyguard
A bodyguard (or close protection officer/operative) is a type of security guard, government law enforcement officer, or servicemember who protects an very important person, important person or group of people, such as high-ranking public offic ...
of the king of the
Hittites
The Hittites () were an Anatolian peoples, Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans, Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in mo ...
. The Mesedi was led by the
Gal mesedi
The ''gal mesedi'' was a Hittite military and administrative title literally meaning "chief of the royal bodyguards". He was in charge of the Mesedi, the personal bodyguard of the Hittite king.Burney p.234-235 It is considered to be one of the mo ...
, who held considerable prestige in Hittite society. The Mesedi were a unit of 12 spearmen who protected the king wherever he might go. They probably numbered more in total in order to protect the king at all hours. They were reinforced and probably monitored by another unit numbering 12, known as the "golden spearmen." The Mesedi's purpose was the protection of the king against
assassination
Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives.
Assassinations are orde ...
s, which was endemic to the Hittite nobility. They also played a prominent role during festivals.
Professor
Christopher I. Beckwith has compared the Mesedi to other royal bodyguard units of
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
societies, generally referred to as
Comitatus
Comitatus may refer to:
*Comitatus (warband), a Germanic warband who follow a leader
* ''Comitatus'', the office of a Roman or Frankish comes, translated as count.
* ''Comitatus'', translated as county, a territory such as governed by medieval cou ...
.
See also
*
Mannerbund
*
Anglo-Saxon military organization
*
Huskarl
*
Druzhina
A druzhina is the Slavonic word for a retinue in service of a chieftain, also called a ''knyaz'' (prince).
Kievan Rus'
''Druzhina'' was flexible both as a term and as an institution. At its core, it referred to the prince's permanent perso ...
*
Hird
The hird (also named "De Håndgangne Menn" in Norwegian), in Scandinavian history, was originally an informal retinue of personal armed companions, hirdmen or housecarls. Over time, it came to mean not only the nucleus ('Guards') of the royal arm ...
*
Comitatus
Comitatus may refer to:
*Comitatus (warband), a Germanic warband who follow a leader
* ''Comitatus'', the office of a Roman or Frankish comes, translated as count.
* ''Comitatus'', translated as county, a territory such as governed by medieval cou ...
*
Al-Haras
*
Gabiniani
The (in English: Gabinians) were 2000 Roman legionaries and 500 cavalrymen stationed in Egypt by the Roman general Aulus Gabinius after he had reinstated the Pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes on the Egyptian throne in 55 BC. The soldiers were left ...
*
Somatophylakes
''Somatophylakes'' (; singular: ''somatophylax'', σωματοφύλαξ) were the bodyguards of high-ranking people in ancient Greece.
The most famous body of ''somatophylakes'' were those of Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great. They ...
*
Maryannu
The Maryannu were a caste of chariot-mounted hereditary warrior nobility that existed in many of the societies of the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. ''Maryannu'' is a Hurrianized Indo-Aryan word, formed by adding the Hurrian suffix ''- ...
*
Varangian Guard
The Varangian Guard () was an elite unit of the Byzantine army from the tenth to the fourteenth century who served as personal bodyguards to the Byzantine emperors. The Varangian Guard was known for being primarily composed of recruits from Nort ...
*
German Guard
*
Leidang
The institution known as ''leiðangr'' (Old Norse), ''leidang'' ( Norwegian), ''leding'' ( Danish), ''ledung'' ( Swedish), ''expeditio'' (Latin) or sometimes lething (English), was a form of conscription ( mass levy) to organize coastal fleets for ...
*
Fyrd
A fyrd was a type of early Anglo-Saxon army that was mobilised from freemen or paid men to defend their Shire's lords estate, or from selected representatives to join a royal expedition. Service in the fyrd was usually of short duration and part ...
*
Thingmen
The Thingmen () was a unit (or a body of men) in the service of the Kings of England during the period 1013–1051. The unit was financed by direct taxation which had its origins in the tribute known as Danegeld. It consisted mostly of men of S ...
Sources
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*
{{italic title
Military history of the Hittite Empire
Bodyguards