05 — The Withdrawal

When Oswiu ruled at Whitby for the Roman reckoning of Pascha, Colmán would not conform. Rather than keep a feast he believed his fathers at Iona had received aright from the Apostle John, he resigned the see of Lindisfarne and withdrew — first to Iona, then to Ireland — taking with him the Irish brethren, some thirty English monks, and a portion of the bones of St. Aidan, the first bishop (Bede, HE III.26). This section follows that principled departure and its Irish coda: the foundation on the island of Inishbofin, the quarrel between the Irish and English monks, and the separate house of Mag Éo — “Mayo of the Saxons.”

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

The withdrawal is the act by which Colmán becomes, in the record, a confessor of conscience rather than merely the loser of a debate. He had argued the Insular Easter at Whitby and had been overruled by the king who summoned the synod; he might have stayed in his see and conformed, as in time the Lindisfarne community itself would do under Eata and later Cuthbert. Instead he laid down the bishopric rather than act against his conscience, and Bede — his opponent on the question and a partisan of the Roman observance — records the departure with notable respect and without a word of reproach (Bede, HE III.26; trans. Colgrave & Mynors 1969). The two files here trace the event itself and its aftermath in Ireland, reserving the larger theme of Bede’s generosity toward the defeated for section 06.

The first file follows the resignation and the journey: Colmán’s refusal to conform after Oswiu’s ruling, his withdrawal with the Irish monks and some thirty English brethren, the telling detail that he carried away part of the relics of Aidan, and the men left behind — Eata set over the remaining brethren and Tuda installed as the new bishop. The second file gives the Irish coda Bede records at HE IV.4: the monastery on Inishbofin, the summer quarrel over the harvest between the Irish and English monks, and Colmán’s foundation of a separate mainland house for the English at Mayo, which by Bede’s own day had become a large and ordered monastery keeping the catholic Easter.

Files in This Section

File Description
Departure to Iona and Ireland Colmán’s principled resignation after Whitby: he would not conform, so he laid down the see of Lindisfarne and withdrew to Iona and then Ireland (Bede, HE III.26), taking the Irish brethren, some thirty English monks, and a portion of the bones of St. Aidan. Eata, an Englishman of Aidan’s training, is left over the remaining brethren; Tuda becomes the next bishop. The withdrawal read as the integrity of a man who would not act against conscience — recorded with respect by his opponent Bede.
Inishbofin and Mayo of the Saxons The Irish coda (Bede, HE IV.4): Colmán founds a monastery on the island of Inishbofin (Inis Bó Finne) off Connacht for both his Irish and English monks; a summer quarrel arises over the harvest; he founds a separate mainland house for the English — Mag Éo, “Mayo of the Saxons” — which Bede says had in his day become a large monastery of English monks living by their own labour under a regular abbot, keeping the catholic Easter. Told as Bede gives it, with the disputed details flagged.

See Also

  • Oswiu’s Decision — the ruling at Whitby that Colmán would not accept, leading directly to his withdrawal
  • Honor for the Defeated — the fuller treatment of Bede’s respectful portrait of the man he believed to be in the wrong
  • The Irish Record — the annals and Irish sources that supplement Bede on Colmán’s death and the foundation of Mayo
  • St. Aidan of Lindisfarne — the first bishop, a portion of whose relics Colmán carried away
  • St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne — who later reconciled the Lindisfarne community to the Roman use Colmán had refused
  • The Pre-Schism Church — the one undivided Church within which the withdrawal took place

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 withdrawal, the relics of Aidan, Eata, and Tuda at III.26; Inishbofin and Mayo at IV.4.)
  • The Annals of Ulster (to A.D. 1131). Ed. and trans. Seán Mac Airt and Gearóid Mac Niocaill. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1983. (Cited by annal-year; Colmán’s death and the foundation of Mayo.)
  • Mayr-Harting, Henry. The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. 3rd ed. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.
  • Charles-Edwards, T. M. Early Christian Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  • Corning, Caitlin. The Celtic and Roman Traditions: Conflict and Consensus in the Early Medieval Church. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
  • Stancliffe, Clare. “Bede and the Britons.” In Bede and the Future, ed. Peter Darby and Faith Wallis. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014.