I always wondered just how the whole Easter Controversy in the British Isles got started until recently. It seems St. Columbanus, missionary Abbot of Luxiel in Burgundy, became the focus of ire of the Frankish bishops over his influence and over his different way of calculating Easter. After refusing to attend a council to be bullied about it, he wrote Pope Boniface IV a letter admonishing him for calculating Easter incorrectly.
He also got into some serious disputes with the Merovingians over their personal behavior. The Kingdom of Burgundy in which he resided was part of the Frankish Empire.
The Easter Controversy in the Isles spawned three major synods in the 7th century over the matter, none of which decided the matter once-and-for-all. The southern Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were converted by missionaries from Rome and their local supporters, so for them it was never an issue.
The system for calculating the date of Easter used by the Irish, Britons, and others who followed the Celtic Rite was an 84-year cycle designed by Augustalis, Bishop of Toulon (Gaul), appointed in 441. The “84-year cycle” means that the cycle repeated with the same days of the calendar with the same astronomical events every eighty-four years.
The system used in the Roman Rite followed a 532-year cycle developed by Dionysus Exiguus (“the Humble”) in the early 6th century. He did not design it, but rather borrowed the system used in the Patriarchate of Alexandria and adapted it to the Julian calendar from the Alexandrian calendar. He is also the person who devised the system of dating years Anno Domini (“in the year of Our Lord”).
The system used in the Visigothic Rite and the Gallican Rite followed another 532-year cycle designed by Victorius of Aquitaine, but his system has some serious errors and both rites had given it up by the 8th century. A large reason for the errors is the difficulty of reconciling the solar calendar with the lunar calendar, which is what both the Victorian version and the Dionysan version did. This was the system used by the Frankish bishops with whom St. Columbanus was directly arguing.
Points of controversy between Romanists and Celticists
These were the ten main points of contention between the Romanist party and the Celtic party at the Synod of Magh Lene in 632, the Synod of Streoneshalh (Whitby) in 664, and the Council of Birr in 597.
Easter was the main point with the tonsure a close second, but there were several other complaints the Romanist party had with the Celtic party.
1. The way the date of Easter was calculated; the Irish tied their date of Pascha to that of the Jewish Passover as Christians did in the East.
2. The method of tonsure (Romans shaved the top of the head while the Celts shaved the front, like the druids).
3. The Irish practice of “going into exile for Christ”, which the Irish called “White Martyrdom”.
4. The unique method of conducting penitentials among the Irish and those whom they influenced; on the Continent the procedure was public confession and public penance while in the Isles both were done in private.
5. The Irish focus on monasticism, which was also more fluid there than on the Continent. Besides the predecessor of the druidic colleges, for the entirely rural life in Ireland, church life centered on monasteries was a better fit. In fact, the monasteries fueled the growth of towns.
6. In Ireland, in the early years at least, abbeys were more often conhospitae (mixed or coed) and often monks and nuns would marry and raise their children together in service to the new faith. In later stages this changed, after convents became large, wealthy, and politically influential.
7. Many communities in Ireland still worshipped on the Sabbath (as they all did originally) rather than on Sunday.
8. The manner of holding one’s fingers when signing the cross: on the Continent, believers used the first two fingers, while in the rest of the Isles they used the first, third, and fourth fingers to symbolize the Holy Trinity.
9. Irish liturgies followed the overall outline of those used in the East, as in the Stowe Missal and the Bobbio Missal.
10. In the earliest centuries of the Irish Church, the primary liturgical language was Greek.
11. In many places, the Irish only dunked (or splashed) a catachumen once for baptism instead of three times.
12. Consecrations of bishops in Ireland were often performed by a single bishop, whereas Roman practice required three bishops.
13. The Irish opposed priestly celibacy.
14. The Irish did not use chrism in baptism.
Acceptance of Roman practice
Often presented as a one-and-done affair after the Synod of Streoneshalh (anarchronistically called the Synod of Whitby), in fact the adoption of the Roman system spread out across three centuries.
The following are the dates the various Celtic kingdoms accepted the Roman date of Easter. I am using the framework of the Heptarchy for convenience only; once dominant among scholars of English history, this theory has given way to recognition of many smaller kingdoms and tribes with varying degrees of independence than the traditional seven.
632 – After being contacted by Rome about the difference in their calculations for Easter, the leading church authorities in the Irish kingdoms of Laighin (Leinster) and Mumha (Munster) agreed at the Synod of Magh Lene this year to adopt the practices of Rome.
633 – The church in the Diocese of Britonia, a Sub-Roman colony of Britons in Galicia in the northwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula, then the Kingdom of the Suebi (until absorbed into the Kingdom of the Visigothi) agreed at the Fourth Council of Toledo to adopt local practice. This meant the Rite of Braga, which kept the same Easter as Rome.
664 – In 635, St. Aidan arrived in Bernicia with a contingent of Columban monks and was given the Isle of Lindisfarne upon which to build a monastery by Oswald, Christian king of both Bernicia and Deira. He became not only Abbot, but Bishop of Lindisfarne, naturally establishing his diocese along the practices of the Celtic Rite.
In 657, Oswiu, King of Northumbria, founded the Abbey of Streoneshalh, and appointed St. Paulinus of York’s convert St. Hilda, then Abbess of Heretu (Hartepool), to head it up. Aidan had founded Heretu, a conhospitae (dual convent of monks and nuns) on Celtic lines, in 640. Hilda accepted the appointment, establishing it under the same rule used at Heretu.
When the Benedictines came to the area after the Norman Conquest, they established their own convent among the ruins of its predecessor and named it the Abbey of Whitby.
In 658, St. Wilfrid, a native Northumbrian who had studied at Lindisfarne, Canterbury, Gaul, and finally Rome, returned to his homeland. Anfrith, ruler of the subkingdom of Deira, established the Abbey of Ripon in 660, but its abbot and monks who had come from Melrose Abbey in the north refused to follow the Roman rules Anfrith preferred, so he called Wilfrid to take over.
Wilfrid expelled the abbot, Eata, and many of the other monks, including the later St. Cuthbert, and reorganized the abbey along Continental lines.
Wilfrid’s and Anfrith’s position on ecclesiastical practice was shared by Eanflaed, wife of Oswiu, King of Northumbria, who favored the Celtic practice at Lindisfarne. Matters came to a head in 664, and Oswiu called the Synod of Streoneshalh (Whitby). The side favoring Roman custom won, St. Colman and his monks left for Iona and eventually for Inishbofin off the west coast of Connemara, and Wilfrid became Bishop of Northumbria.
The Diocese of Mercia (now of Lichfield), the kingdom of which had only fully converted in 655, also accepted the decisions of the synod.
688 – Upon the visit of St. Adomnan of Iona, Sedulius, Bishop of Glasgow in the Kingdom of Alt Clut (Strathclyde) agreed to follow the Catholic method of calculating Easter.
697 – At the Synod of Birr this year called by St. Adomnan, Abbot of Iona and coarb of St. Colmcille (therefore head of the vast network of religious institutions in Ireland and on Great Britain known as Muintir Colmcille), and Loingseach mac Oengusso, High King of Ireland, and attended by rulers and religious prelates from across Ireland, Fortriu, and the Hebrides, along with the best brehons of Ireland. Among the attendees were St. Curetan, Bishop of Ross, and Coeddi, Bishop of Iona (but subordinate to Adomnan). At the time, the Abbot of Iona was considered Primate of the whole Irish Church, including its branches on Great Britain.
At this synod, the kingdoms of Ulaidh (Ulster), Midhe (Meath), and Connacht (Connaught) agreed to adopt the Roman calculation for Easter. More importantly, the council approved the Lex Innocentium (Law of Innocents), also known as the Cain Adomnain, with all the kings across Ireland as guarantors of its upholding.
However, despite the urging of Abbot Adomnan, the community of Iona remained resistant on the question.
700 – In this year, St. Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, wrote an acrimonious letter to Geraint, King of Dumnonia (by then reduced to West Devon and Cornwall, but originally Dorset, Somerset, all of Devon, and Cornwall; the Saxons called it West Wales, in opposition to North Wales).
705 – St. Aldhelm, now Bishop of Sherbourne, persuaded the Britons in East Devon and Somerset, by then the western reaches of Wessex, to accept the Roman Easter, its tonsure, etc.
710 – St. Ceolfrith, Abbot of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow, wrote to Nechtan mac Der-Ilei, King of Fortrenn (the northern Picts, those north and west of The Mounth) on the dating of Easter after the latter sought his advice on harmonising the celebration in his kingdom. Fortriu adopted the Catholic dating for Easter, and most of the other northern kingdoms (Circinn, Fibh, Ce, Caith, Athfodhla or Ystrad Aeron) followed suit; Dal Riata had already done so after Birr in 697.
717 – After the Columban clergy found themselves expelled from Fortrenn and the other Pictish realms over their refusal to follow the Catholic Easter, the churches in Iona, the Hebrides, and the Isle of Mann finally agreed to the Catholic method of dating of Easter.
744 – At the Council of Soissons presided over by St. Boniface, the Gallican Rite churches of the Frankish empire adopted the Dionysian calendar used by Rome and along with it the Roman dating of Easter.
768 – North Wales, under the leadership of Gwynedd, adopted the Catholic method of dating Easter.
777 – South Wales, under the leadership of Dyfed, adopted the Catholic method of dating Easter.
818 – The Celtic Rite ended in Brittany when Louis the Pious, King of the Franks and Co-Emperor of the Romans, imposed the Catholic Easter, the Roman tonsure, and the Roman Rite.
822 – Wessex finishes conquering Dumnonia to the River Tamar (West Devon), afterwards compelling its population to conform to the Catholic dating of Easter.
909 – According
to The Catholic Encyclopedia,
Cornwall finally conformed to the Catholic method of dating Easter in 909.
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