The Last Hosting
The surviving annals provide several firmly dated notices for 1039, but they do not offer a continuous narrative. Their terse entries concentrate on rulers, senior churchmen, violent deaths and exceptional occurrences. The Annals of Ulster, Annals of Tigernach, Chronicon Scotorum, Annals of Inisfallen and later Annals of the Four Masters overlap without always agreeing. Some events appear in only one compilation, and descriptions of the same death can differ. Political interpretation must therefore remain cautious. Ordinary farming, craftwork and trade continued throughout the year, but their rhythms are reconstructed from archaeology and wider eleventh-century evidence rather than from entries explicitly dated to 1039.