03 — The Synod of Whitby

The Synod of Whitby (664) is the hinge on which St. Colmán’s whole story turns and the centerpiece of this collection. King Oswiu of Northumbria summoned the bishops, abbots, and clergy of his kingdom to the double monastery of Streanæshalch (Whitby), ruled by the Abbess Hilda, to settle which reckoning of Pascha his Church would keep — the Insular cycle Colmán had received from Iona, or the Alexandrian-Roman cycle pressed by the young priest Wilfrid. This section sets the scene of that gathering and then reconstructs, at full strength and with equal fairness, the two great speeches the controversy produced: Colmán’s appeal to Columba and the Apostle John against Wilfrid’s appeal to Peter and the universal Church.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism; Celtic; defender of the Celtic Pascha)

For all its later fame, the synod of 664 was a regional assembly of a single Anglo-Saxon kingdom, called by a king to resolve a practical disorder in his own household and Church: in some years the Insular and the Alexandrian computus placed Easter on different Sundays, so that the king kept the feast while the queen, trained in the Kentish-Roman observance, was still fasting in Lent (Bede, HE III.25; trans. Colgrave & Mynors 1969). Yet because Bede made it the dramatic turning-point of his History, and because Stephen of Ripon made it the first great triumph of his hero Wilfrid, Whitby has come to stand in the literature for far more than it decided — for the “submission” of a “Celtic Church” to Rome, an image the sources do not warrant and which this section is careful to resist (Mayr-Harting 1991; Stancliffe in Bonner et al. 1989; Charles-Edwards 2000). Both parties at Whitby confessed one faith, received the same sacraments, and belonged to the one undivided Church of the seventh century; what divided them was the calendar and the tonsure, not the Creed (see The Two Easters; The Tonsure and Other Customs). The two files here keep that fact in view while giving each side everything its best advocate could say.

The first file establishes the occasion, the venue, and the cast — why Oswiu called the synod, where and when it met, and who spoke. The second is the heart of the whole collection: a full and even-handed reconstruction of the debate between Colmán and Wilfrid as Bede composed it in HE III.25, read critically against the rival account of Stephen of Ripon, with the partisanship of both narrators flagged and neither side’s case shortchanged.

Files in This Section

File Description
The Gathering of 664 The setting and occasion: Oswiu convenes the synod in 664 at Hilda’s double monastery of Streanæshalch (Whitby); why he called it — the two-Easters problem in his own household and the pressure from his son Alhfrith and from Wilfrid; the cast assembled (Colmán and the Irish, Agilbert and Wilfrid for the Roman party, Hilda, Cedd as interpreter, the priest James, Oswiu presiding); and the year of eclipse and plague, with the precise date noted as disputed.
Colmán and Wilfrid Debate The centerpiece: both cases reconstructed in full and fairly (METHODOLOGY §4). Colmán’s appeal — the Easter of Columba and the holy fathers of Iona, traced to the Apostle John; no novelty. Wilfrid’s appeal — the Easter of Rome, where Peter and Paul taught and died, and of the universal Church, against two remote islands; John’s observance as concession to the Jews; and Christ’s word to Peter, “Thou art Peter… I will give thee the keys” (Matt. 16:18–19). The speeches as Bede’s composition, with Bede and Stephen flagged as Roman partisans.

See Also

References

  • Bede. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum). Ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors. Oxford Medieval Texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969. (Cited by book.chapter; the synod at III.25, the aftermath at III.26.)
  • Stephen of Ripon (Eddius Stephanus). The Life of Bishop Wilfrid (Vita Sancti Wilfrithi). Ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1927. (Cited by chapter; Whitby at ch. 10.)
  • Mayr-Harting, Henry. The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. 3rd ed. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.
  • Stancliffe, Clare. “Oswald, ‘Most Holy and Most Victorious King of the Northumbrians.’” In Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint, ed. Clare Stancliffe and Eric Cambridge. Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1995; and her contributions in Gerald Bonner et al., eds., St Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1989.
  • Corning, Caitlin. The Celtic and Roman Traditions: Conflict and Consensus in the Early Medieval Church. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
  • Charles-Edwards, T. M. Early Christian Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  • Cubitt, Catherine. Anglo-Saxon Church Councils c. 650–c. 850. London: Leicester University Press, 1995.