ABSTRACT
The Vikings themselves were disunited, each group operating in its own interests, with major battles in 849 and in 851–852, when a new fleet of Foreigners, probably Danes, arrived to dispute mastery with those, probably Norsemen, who had already settled. The Vikings were a new element in an already complex situation: the native kings sometimes aided each other against the Vikings, but sometimes used Viking allies against each other. The disintegrating effects of the Viking settlement can be seen in the sphere of ecclesiastical law. The temporal overlordship of Mael-Sechnaill seems to go hand in hand with the recognition of Armagh’s ecclesiastical authority. The Viking settlements seem to have encouraged the practice of combining ecclesiastical appointments in more than one church, and of combining ecclesiastical and secular office. The cessation of inter-monastic wars which had marred the church in the preceding period removed by far the worst of the ecclesiastical abuses of the pre-Viking age.
