Family Lessons 123: Removing the Landmarks

In the late 1290s, my teenaged 21 x great-grandfather, William de Walton, along with Richard de Molyneux, prosecuted William de Aintree and other unnamed persons at the Assize Court at Lancaster. They accused them of carrying away an old cross from a place called ‘Hosyere Cross’ between Sefton and Walton, obscuring the boundary of the respective manors, no doubt to de Aintree’s benefit. The cross was ordered to be replaced or returned, and an arbitration set up to define the boundaries between Sefton and Aintree in 1300. Shifting a boundary stone is certainly a cheaper way of extending one’s estate than going to the trouble of buying more land, and it likely proves quicker than inheriting. It is, however, an act of theft, or fraud, for the victim of the loss may not realise that his property has shrunk. Moving boundary stones was an unscrupulous practice against which the ancients, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, railed:

Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof. Job 24:2

Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set. Proverbs 22:28

Well might William de Aintree have found himself disgraced at the court at Lancaster, though no actual punishment seems to have been recorded.

Land today is not the primary source of wealth, and few of us can afford to buy more than a homestead’s worth in any event. Yet other boundary stones we are more apt to remove; other forms of property we are more greatly inclined to appropriate. I have heard preachers steal other men’s illustrations (which is normally fine, but not when you pretend to be Ian Paisley); some have stolen credit for others’ kind actions; still other so-called Christians I know have hired hotel rooms and deliberately complained about the service in order to receive complimentary return bookings.

Yet an ancient landmark is more than just a property marker, it is a warning that one is entering another’s territory, one to which we may not have lawful access or any business even being there. Denominations which remove the foundation of marriage find themselves straying into hostile territory; those who attempt to cross the division between the physical and spiritual worlds may invite into their lives and homes forces and beings which do not lawfully belong. When God created the cosmos, He established laws, boundaries and distinctions; those who cross them, break them and contravene them do so at their peril.