Hostages And Sanctuaries
The Irish chronicles open 1025 with their usual calendrical precision: the Kalends of January fell on a Friday. That technical note matters because annalists were not writing modern narrative history. They arranged brief notices under years, sometimes preserving exact days, more often recording deaths, battles and ecclesiastical successions without fuller explanation. For 1025 the principal witnesses—the Annals of Ulster, Tigernach, Inisfallen, Loch Cé, the Four Masters and Chronicon Scotorum—agree on the broad outline, though not always on wording or emphasis.