comment, by Anonymous, brought up to text

Just because it is so cool:

"In the whole of feudal Europe...there existed groups founded on blood-relationship. The terms which served to describe them were rather indefinite--in France, most commonly, parente [accent over the e] or lignage. Yet the ties thus created were regarded as extremely strong. One word is characteristic. In France, in speaking of kinsfolk, one commonly called them simply 'friends' (amis) and in Germany, Freunde. A legal document of the eleventh century originating from the Ile de France enumerates them thus: 'His friends, that is to say his mother, his brothers, his sisters and his other relatives by blood or marriage.' ... The general assumption seems to have been that there was no real friendship save between persons united by blood."

--Marc Bloch, Feudal Society: The Growth of Ties of Dependence, Volume 1 (1961:123-24).