m.:—this word remains in ‘the Rape of Bramber’ in Sussex, and is undoubtedly Scandinavian, being probably derived, as Pal Vídalín suggested, from hreppa, and thus originally meaning a share, allodium; it may be that the proper name Hrappr (Landn.) is akin (= a yeoman, master of a Rape?); for the bad sense of that name (= a traitor) is a metonyme, borrowed from the person of that name in the Njála. After the introduction of Christianity, all Icel. was, for the maintenance of the poor, divided into poor-law districts called hreppar, which still exist, being in most cases, though not always, identical with the sókn or parish; and it is remarkable that the district round the Bishop’s seat at Skalholt bears the local name Hreppar, indicating that this division had the Bishop’s house as its nucleus. The occurrence therefore of this name in the Landn. is an anachronism; as probably are also the few instances in which hreppr is used as an appellative in records of the heathen age, e. g. Lv. l. c. It is not known when the division into Rapes took place; perhaps it took place gradually during the 11th century; vera á hrepp, koma á hreppinn, to be or become a pauper. In the Grágás a special section (and as it seems one of the oldest) is called ‘um Hreppa-skil,’ Kb. ii. 171–180; ‘um Hreppa-lög,’ Sb. i. 443–458. Twenty franklins at least constituted a lawful Rape, Kb. ii. 171. (These remarks are partly due to Konrad Maurer.)

COMPDS: hreppadómr, hreppalög, Hreppamaðr, hreppamál, hreppamót, hreppaskil, hreppatal, hreppsfundr, hreppsmaðr, hreppssókn, hreppsóknarmenn, hreppsstjóri, hreppsúmagi.