Hostages and Burned Churches
The year’s largest recorded Irish campaign was directed against Mide and Brega. The Annals of Tigernach report a hosting by the Ulaid and Leinstermen, while the later Annals of the Four Masters add “foreigners”, a term normally applied in this period to the Norse-Gaelic forces of towns such as Dublin. The allies entered Mide seeking the hostages of the men of Brega. Such captives were not merely prisoners of war. Hostages embodied political submission, guaranteed agreements and allowed an overlord to demonstrate publicly that lesser rulers accepted his authority.