hostages

hostages were human pledges handed over by an inferior to a superior, more rarely exchanged by two parties of equal standing, to guarantee fulfilment of a contract. An early Irish king's base clients jointly delivered a human pledge to guarantee payment of his food rents, and the word for base clientship, giallnae, from giall, a hostage, suggested to D. A. Binchy that this practice once applied to the clients of every lord. But in historic times hostages normally guaranteed political contracts, for instance the oaths of allegiance taken at a king's inauguration by his own leading nobles, and the promises of tribute and military service given when a defeated territory submitted to an overlord. Hostages were closely related to the submitting parties, as sons and daughters, or foster‐children, or else were close relatives of their principal supporters. They could be honourably treated while the submitting party remained loyal, but chained, blinded, or executed in case of rebellion. Anglo‐Norman kings and barons were familiar with the practice of hostage‐taking, and continued to use this as a way of controlling Irish chieftains in the later Middle Ages. Angry protests rose from the colonists when government officials sometimes released hostages for ransom instead of retaining them to guarantee peace.

Katharine Simms