wapentake (wopntak)

[ to have been originally applied to the armed a emblies of freemen; and there is po ibly an allusion to a practice of taking up or "touching" the arms. Wapentake is still a territorial division in Yorkshire. It is written that King Allured, or Alfred, who then raigned, did devide the real me into shires, and the shires into hundrethes, and the hundrethes into rapes or wapen takes , and the wapentakes into tit hinges, Soe that tenn tit hinges made an hundrethe, and five made a lathe or wapentake. Spenser, State of Ireland. The wapentake is found only in the Anglian districts. To the north of these districts the shires are divided into wards, and to the south into hundreds. Hence the wapentake may be a relic of Scand in avian occupation. Stubbs , Const. Hist., § 45.