A Fragile Peace
The main political fact of 1016 was the continuing reassertion of Máel Sechnaill’s authority. Chronicon Scotorum places in this year an expedition by Máel Sechnaill into Ulaid, where he took hostages. In eleventh-century Irish politics hostages were not symbolic ornaments; they were living guarantees of submission, alliance or good behaviour. Such an expedition suggests that the king of Mide was not merely claiming an old title after Brian’s death, but actively repairing a network of obedience across the northern half of Ireland.