Cattle, Kings And Clergy
The Annals of Ulster place the Kalends of January for 1009 on a Saturday, with the first day of the moon. The Annals of Inisfallen give the same weekday and lunar detail. Such entries remind us that the annalists were not writing modern narrative history: they arranged events under annual headings, often without exact dates, and different chronicles sometimes place related material under adjacent years. The Annals of the Four Masters, compiled much later from earlier materials, place several events corresponding to 1009 under their 1008 heading, while their 1009 entry is marked by the editors as “recte 1010”. For a responsible account of 1009, the safest course is to focus on events assigned to the year by the earlier annalistic tradition, especially the Annals of Ulster, while noting corroboration or variation where other annals preserve it.