Eli5 How did ancient and medieval borders work?
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The concept of sovereign states with clear borders where the reach of one ended and another began is actually quite modern.
The treaty of Westphalia is often seen as the origin of the modern system of sovereign states. It is from 1648.
For context, the city of New York was founded in New York was founded in 1624 and the last aurochs died in 1627, so it is up to you to judge how ‘ancient’ that is.
The important part is that from that point on borders worked more or less like they do today.
Before that you had borders too and a general understanding that some ruler far away made the rules in their far away place and that your own reach ended at some point, but generally it was not seen as it is today. It was more like you had places you hadn’t quite conquered yet and places on the edge of your country that had less independence than those close to the center of your power and various degrees of rulers having allegiance to you or someone else.
The idea that it might in some way be wrong to take over a plot of land next to the one you control was not really well developed.
In the medieval world you had lots of small fiefdoms where the local rulers had agreed among themselves where their lands ended and the next ones began, usually some place like a river where they had stopped fighting when the topic had come up the last time.
Borders were often less important than who controlled cities and towns and control over rivers and roads.
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