In a preceding chapter we have seen the Vestrymen of Truro Parish engaged in ecclesiastical affairs committed to their charge; among their secular duties was to appoint every four years reputable Freeholders to "perambulate" the Parish, that is to say to travel over the plantations and farms within it and renew their landmarks. In Virginia this was called "processioning" but it derived from a very ancient English practice know as "beating the bounds" believed to have been brought by Saint Augustine to England from Gaul where "it may have been derived from the Roman festival of Terminus, the god of landmarks, to whom cakes and ale were offered, sports and dancing taking place at the boundaries." In England we find the "beating of the bounds" observed under Alfred and Aethelstan, whose laws mention it. In later days, maps still being rare, it continued an English parish custom, generally observed on Ascension Day or during Rogation Week. A procession was formed, headed by the Priest of the Parish, the Churchwardens and other Parish dignitaries and followed by a crowd of boys who were armed with sticks with which they beat the Parish boundary stones and were sometimes beaten themselves at each marker in order to fix those markers in their minds and to insure the location of the boundary stones being remembered through the life of the younger generation. The procession frequently ended in a "parish-ale" or feast which doubtlessly assisted in reconciling the boys to it all.[44] In earlier days the Priests sought the Divine blessing for the following harvest on the lands within the parish. But translated to Virginia the procedure was robbed of much of its formality and many of its picturesque features and came to apply to renewing the landmarks of private holdings rather than confirming in memory those of the Parish bounds. There was a Truro Vestry meeting held on the 8th October, 1743, to appoint "Processioners," which meeting, the record states, was pursuant to an order of Fairfax County Court, Loudoun then being included in Fairfax. The Vestrymen at their meeting "laid off the said Parish into Precincts and appointed Processioners in manner following." As the men appointed were representative men in their neighbourhoods and as the "Precinct" may be taken to forecast the later division of Loudoun into its Magisterial Districts of modern days, it is interesting to study so much of the record as refers to the country above Difficult Run which in a few years was to be organized as Loudoun: