Before speaking of what was probably the principal economic factor in the new life which Sussex received from the invasion, the foundation of monasteries, it is of interest to show how a rape was built up from the sea by the new-comers, and the best example we can take to exhibit this process is the rape delivered into the hands of Warren, the Duke’s son-in-law, in overlordship. We shall see it spreading from the centre of its ancient capital, fed, it may be presumed, from its ancient harbour, and slowly extending northward a jurisdiction gradually acquired over the Weald, and later even overleaping the northern boundary of the forest ridge. The whole process occupied about two hundred years. Here then are the chief points in the growth of this Rape of Lewes. Let us note, in the first place, its natural boundaries. The Ouse bounds it to the east and the Adur to the west, and the strip of land runs north and south between these two river valleys; it starts from the sea coast by which entry is made into the county, and loses itself in the forest to the north. Its principal town, Lewes, has all those characteristics which distinguish the central towns of the countrysides of Western Europe, save that it possesses no cathedral. It is a place naturally susceptible of fortification. It is Roman, and probably pre-Roman in its origins. It possesses a natural means of approach in the shape of the river beneath it; good water, a dry and naturally well-drained soil, and (a peculiar feature which is to be discovered in every case throughout Gaul, Northern Italy, Western Germany, and Britain) it lies, not in the centre, but right to one side of the countryside which takes its name from it. This feature, which is so marked in the case of the great Norman bishoprics and of most other divisions of the later Empire, is probably due to the fact that where a river or range of hills or great forest formed a natural boundary for a district, it at the same time formed the main natural defence for the chief stronghold of that district. Whatever the cause may be, the chief towns of the various divisions into which Western Europe has fallen are nearly always near the frontier of those divisions. Canterbury is near the sea; Edinburgh near the north of the Lothians. Rouen is by no means central as to Normandy. Even Avranches, Bayeux, and Coutances are upon the edges of their [Illustration: WEST HAM] [Sidenote: MILITARY VALUE OF LEWES] respective dioceses. And in this county of Sussex, Chichester, the cathedral town, is close to the western border, Arundel is right up against the border of its own Rape, Bramber within a stone’s throw of its eastern boundary. Pevensey alone is somewhat central. Hastings is again thrown up towards the eastern side of the belt which takes its name.