A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



So then there is some evidence in favour of a Norman origin for 

 the rape ; but we have still to consider the cases in which the word 

 occurs in conjunction with a verb in the past tense apparently implying 

 a reference to the time of King Edward, For instance, Sedlescombe 

 'pro una hida et iii virgis foris rapum se defendebat' (fo. 20). Here the 

 allusion is clearly to the period before the Conquest, but its wording 

 implies a contradiction, as land foris rapum is shown in the section of 

 this article dealing with the fiscal side of the survey to have been 

 exempt from that payment of geld which is implied in the phrase se 

 defendebat. A possible explanation is that foris rapum is used merely in 

 its technical sense of exempt from geld and applies only to the virgates, 

 the translation being ' was assessed for one hide and (there were) three 

 virgates exempt.' The case of Shelvestrode, however, where the Count 

 of Mortain ' hab(et) i hidam que jacuit in rapo de Lewes. Nunc extra 

 rapum est. Non geldat. Alnod tenuit de rege E.' (fo. zib) appears to be 

 a distinct reference to the pre-Conquest existence of rapes, as does an 

 entry concerning Sedlescombe, which sets out that one virgate held by 

 Walter fitz Lambert ' nunquam geldavit et semper fuit foris rapum ' 

 (fo. 20) ; while a puzzling phrase is found in connection with a manor 

 in Lewes rape, — ' Ipsi villani sunt in rapo comitis Moritonii sed semper 

 fuerunt extra rapum' (fo. 2'-jb). When we further find in the ancient 

 customs of the borough of Lewes that a payment was due from the 

 purchaser of a man ' in whatever place he may buy him within the 

 rape,' it seems at least highly probable that the rape was of pre-Conquest 

 institution.^ 



But whatever was the origin of the rapes as districts, as lordships 

 they owed their existence to the Norman Conquest alone. With the 

 exception of the Church's holdings the whole of each rape was held by a 

 single Norman lord. As the possessions of the English landowners had 

 straggled over several rapes and were intermixed with one another, the 

 new system revolutionized the whole tenure of the county. The lord- 

 ship of land was now determined, not by the manor to which it had 

 belonged, but by the rape in which it lay. So rigidly was this system 

 enforced by the breaking up of those manors which lay in two or more 

 rapes that Domesday notes, as if an exception, of Fecamp's estate at 

 Steyning : — ' In rapo de Harundel sunt xxxiii bids et dimidia et alias 

 in rapo Willelmi de Braose, et tamen abbas tenet omnes modo.' For in 

 the same column the church of Bosham, as an illustration of the rule, 

 is recorded to have lost no less than forty-seven hides, which lay in the 

 distant rape of William de Warenne. 



The second remarkable feature of the Sussex survey is connected 

 with the pre-Conquest manors in the county. The exact significance of 

 the term 'manor' as used in Domesday has been the subject of much 

 debate and confusion, due in part at least to the endeavour to tie the 



' The origin of the rapes was discussed in vol. i. of the Archceological Review ; Mr. F. E. Sawyer 

 arguing for their introduction by the Normans (pp. S4-9), while Sir Henry Howorth and Mr. Round 

 supported the opposite view (pp. 229-30). 



354 



