Etymology Dictionary

WAPENTAKE,  an old name for a hundred or district.  (Scand.)   'Fraunchises, hundredis, wapentakes;' Arnold's Chron. (1502), ed. 1811, p. 181.   'Candred... is a contray þat conteyneþ an hundred townes, and is also in Englische i-called wepentake;' Trevisa, ii. 87; spelt wapentake, Rob. of Brunne, tr. of Langtoft, p. 145, l. 16.   The word occurs in the A.S. Laws, but was merely borrowed from Norse; the A.S. tǽcan does not mean 'to touch,' but 'to teach,' and is altogether removed from the word under discussion.   It is remarkable that various explanations of this word have been given, seeing that all the while the Laws of Edward the Confessor fully explain the orig. sense.—A.S. wǽpengetǽce, dat. case, a district, wapentake, Secular Laws of Edgar, § vi in Thorpe, Ancient Laws, vol. i. p. 272; we also find wǽpentáke (so accented in the MS.), dat. case, id. p. 292.   The nom. is wǽpengetǽc or wǽpentác, Latinised as wapentac or wapentagium, Laws of Edw. Conf. § xxx, in Thorpe, i. 455, where we also read:  'Quod alii vocant hundredum, supradicti comitatus vocant wapentagium, et hoc non sine causa; cum enim aliquis accipiebat prefecturam wapentagii, die constituto, conveniebant omnes majores contra eum in loco ubi soliti erant congregari, et, descendente eo de equo suo, omnes assurgebant contra eum, et ipse erigebat lanceam suam in altum, et omnes de lanceis suis tangebant hastam ejus, et sic confirmabant se sibi.   Et de armis, qui arma vocant wappa, et taccare, quod est confirmare.'   To which another MS. adds:  'Anglice vero arma vocantur wapen, et taccare confirmare, quasi armorum confirmacio, vel ut magis expresse, secundum linguam Anglicam, dicamus wapentac, i.e. armorum tactus: wapen enim arma sonat, tac tactus est.   Quamobrem potest cognosci quod hac de causa totus ille conventus dicitur wapentac, eo quod per tactum armorum suorum ad invicem confœderate (sic) sunt.'   We may then dismiss other explanations, and accept the above explicit one, that when a new chief of a wapentake was elected, he used to raise his weapon (a spear), and his men touched it with theirs in token of fealty.   However the word (as above said) is Norse.—Icel. vápnatak, lit. a weapon-taking or weapon-touching; hence, a vote of consent so expressed, and lastly, a subdivision of a shire in the Danish part of England, answering to the hundred in other parts; the reason for this being as above given.—Icel. vápna, gen. pl. of vápn, a weapon, cognate with E. weapon; and tak, a taking hold, a grasp, esp. a grasp in wrestling (here used of the contact of weapons), from taka, to take, seize, grasp, also to touch.   See Weapon and Take.   ¶ As the Icel. taka means to touch as well as to take, it will be seen that the explanation 'weapon-grasping' in the Icel. Dict. is insufficient; it means more than that, viz. the clashing of one spear against another.   'Si placuit [sententia], frameas concutiunt; honoratissimum assensus genus est armis laudare,' Tacitus, Germania, chap. 11; &c.   Cf. Lowland Sc. wapinschaw (weapon-show), an exhibition of arms made at certain times in every district; Jamieson.