ABSTRACT
The Vienna Congress could rearrange Europe's international boundaries by the comparatively rational expedient of matching measurable variables, like populations, square kilometers, the availability of minerals, etc., in the overall context of mechanistic equilibrium thinking. But, however down-to-earth their origins, once there, these frontiers gained inviolable sanctity. The connective function becomes evident in the ancient European customs associated with the perambulation of the boundaries. The custom also illustrates how the radial concept may change over into that of the continuous, enclosing boundary. Such boundaries as were claimed referred to proprietary rights over fields, as different from purely geographical administrative boundaries. Although the "traditional" boundary combined both functions of dividing and connecting, its "modern" counterpart has done away with the paradox. The transcendence of sovereignty gives to the modern territorial boundary its sacrosanctness. Boundary disputes offered a means by which the local arrangements could be changed in the direction of territorialisation.
