Synod of Whitby

Northumbria had received Christianity from two directions. King Edwin, converted by missionaries of the Roman mission of Gregory the Great, was baptized in 627, while Oswald, brought up in exile among the Irish like his brother Oswiu, invited monks from Iona led by Aidan, whose see was at Lindisfarne. The Irish computed Easter with an old 84-year cycle, Rome and most of the Continent with tables based on the Alexandrian 19-year cycle, so the feast often fell on different days: at Oswiu’s court one party could be celebrating Easter while Queen Eanflæd and her household were still keeping Lent. The dispute came to a head in the early 660s, when Oswiu’s son Alhfrith, sub-king of Deira, expelled Irish-trained monks from Ripon and gave the monastery to Wilfrid, lately returned from Rome.

In 664 Oswiu called a synod at Streanæshalch, Hilda’s double monastery, generally, though not certainly, identified with Whitby (another candidate is Strensall near York). Bishop Colmán of Lindisfarne defended the Irish custom as that of St Columba and of the apostle John. Wilfrid spoke for the Roman party in place of the Frankish bishop Agilbert, whose English was poor, and argued that Rome kept the practice of Peter and Paul and of the whole church. When both sides agreed that Christ had given Peter the keys of heaven, Oswiu declared that he would follow Peter. Colmán and those who would not conform withdrew to Iona, the Northumbrian see moved from Lindisfarne to York, and Wilfrid was made bishop.

The synod is known from Stephen of Ripon’s Life of Wilfrid, written soon after 710, and from Bede (731), who gave it a central place in his history. Historians now see it as a Northumbrian affair rather than a victory of “Rome” over a separate “Celtic Church”: most of Ireland had already adopted the Roman Easter, and the tables Wilfrid championed were in fact Alexandrian. Still, it was an important step in bringing the English church into line with Roman usage.