[5] The rapes may also derive from the system of fortifications devised by Alfred the Great in the late ninth century to defeat the Vikings.

[5] The Sussex rapes each had a headquarters in the developed south where the lord's hall, court, demesne lands, principal church and peasant holdings were located,[4] whereas to the north there were smaller dependent settlements in the marsh, woodland and heath used for summer pasture.

[6] The suggestion that ropes were used to mark out territory,[7] was well countered by J. H. Round, asking "do those who advance such views realize the size of the districts they have to deal with?

[6] The Saxon origin has been questioned, as the Normans showed little interest in learning the English language, and thus it seems unlikely that they would have adopted a local word.

[9] One suggested etymology of the word, from Edward Lye in the 18th century, is in the Icelandic territorial division hreppr, meaning 'district or tract of land'.

[10] Sussex's rapes may have been a similar division to the six or seven lathes of neighbouring Kent which were undoubtedly early administrative units.

[6] Another possibility is that the rapes may derive from the system of fortifications, or burhs (boroughs) devised by Alfred the Great in the late ninth century to defeat the Vikings.

[10] In Sussex, the fortifications in the Burghal Hidage were recorded as being at Eorpeburnan on the Sussex-Kent border, Hastings, Lewes, Burpham and Chichester.

Since the system of fortifications introduced by Alfred the Great extended into Surrey and Wessex as well, but neither of these regions have rapes or any similar sub-divisions.

[10] Situated between Normandy and London, control over Sussex was strategically important to William the Conqueror, who needed to protect his major communication routes.

Also as the ancestral home of the last Saxon king of England, Harold Godwinson, William had to be careful to secure Sussex against revolt.

In the Domesday survey, five great Norman lords held the rapes into which Sussex was divided, four of them giving their names to four of the five divisions as they were called in Domesday Book; at the accession of King Henry I in 1100[16] they were Robert of Bellême in Arundel rape,[17] Robert's nephew William, Count of Mortain in Pevensey,[18] William of Warenne in Lewes,[19] the count of Eu in Hastings and, the only fully trustworthy Sussex lord at the time, Philip de Braose[20] in Bramber.

[21] These lords had succeeded, not to similar Anglo-Saxon magnates, but to a crowd of lesser landholders:[22] each also held lands in the rapes of others.

[12] From this time onwards, Sussex was divided into—from west to east—Chichester, Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Pevensey and Hastings rapes.