Easter is the chief festival in the Christian calendar. It marks the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There have been different methods for setting the date for it.

The forward history of the British Isles after 663, and much of what became the English Speaking World, was shaped out of a dispute about the dating method for Easter.

As at 663, amongst the people who became the English, there was a Gaelic Celtic method. And there was a different Roman method. Which was right?

The dispute was resolved at the Synod of Whitby, 663/4. This was a gathering of Lords Temporal and Lords Spiritual, mainly Northumbrian in origin, on the North East Coast of what is now England.

The Synod, influenced by a brilliant young man named Wilfrid, came to a decision as directed by the Northumbrian King: the Roman method was adopted.

• Unintentionally, the political effect was to accelerate the formation of the Nation of the English.
• And equally unintentionally, the cultural effect was to divide Anglo and Celt for the generations to come, at a time when the two were becoming one in underlying Christian spirituality.

Now, creating “England” was not on the Synod’s agenda. The word “England” did not exist. Neither did the word “English”. What was on the agenda was uniting the Kingdom of Northumbria, and the family of its King, around a single method of dating Easter.

At that time Northumbria, and its royal family, were divided between the Easter dating method of the Romans, and the Easter dating method of the Gaelic Celts (called “Scoti”, i.e. Scots, by the Romans). The date of Easter could differ by up to a week depending upon the method used.

For the royal family, it created, shall we say, a little difficulty. In those days, Easter was a feast following on from a long period of self-denial and fasting called “Lent”.  One year, the King, Oswy, who followed the Gaelic way, set about his Easter Feast whilst his wife, Eanflaed, who followed the Roman way, was still in her Lenten Fasting. Eanflaed was no shrinking violet.

There were broader political implications as well. Northumbria was a volatile kingdom. It was being forged together out of two rival – and violent – and reluctant – partners, Bernicia and Deira. These were both Angle-ish kingdoms, Germanic in origin. King Oswy was of Bernicia; his HQ was Bamburgh, between what we would now call modern Newcastle and Edinburgh. The Bernicians followed the Gaelic Easter way. Queen Eanflaed was of Deira, broadly what you would now call Yorkshire: her origin was York. The Deirans followed the Roman Easter way.

Now, in the previous generation, an all-time great Gaelic Celtic Christian called St Aidan had done much to unite the two rival sub-kingdoms within a common and vibrant Christian spirituality. In my book, “The Mustard Seed”, I call Aidan’s particular type of spirituality Martinian, because it descended into the West via St Martin of Tours. I also show that it was what a modern Protestant Christian would call “Life in the Holy Spirit of the Christian God”.

The Angles loved the Gaelic Martinian Christian Life in the Holy Spirit. Wherever it went amongst them, they embraced it. It was transforming their world, and not just amongst the Angles of the North East and Yorkshire. It was transforming the Angle-ish Midlands too. Because the Angles loved this new Christian spirituality, the Bernician and Deiran parties understood that a good way forward, avoiding relapse into violence and rivalry, would be a unifying Christian state for Northumbria.

However, if you want to unite uneasy political rivals into one state, you have to unite the calendar. Which means you have to unite over Easter dating, because there are other dates which take from Easter within a Christian state calendar. If Easter is out by a week, within rival sub-kingdoms which have had a tradition of saying it with spearpoint, much else is at risk too. You need a common calendar. Either the Gaelic one, or the Roman one.

Now, we have to come to grips with some Christian detail before proceeding further. The Christian spirituality in Deira had more complex and nuanced origins than the Christian spirituality in Bernicia. The Deirans, with one key exception, the brilliant young man called Wilfrid, loved Gaelic Martinian Christian spirituality, but were birthed as Christians out of a Roman mission that had pre-dated St Aidan. And they remained committed to the outward Roman ways. Those were more prestigious. In my book, “The Mustard Seed”, I say that wherever the Anglo Saxons encountered the vibrant Martinian Christian spirituality encased within a prestigious Roman Catholic outer container, they embraced it. The combination was like catnip to a cat. Deira was of the combination. It actually became the ancestor of the English fusion Christian Identity: Romano Gaelic Martinian Catholic – very sparky in its origin time.

However, as at 663/4, young Wilfrid – he would later become Bishop of York – looked down on the Gaelic element. He was passionate for the Roman one. And he won the day for it at Whitby. In my book, I call him a bulldozer there. Brilliant and forceful, he got his Roman way. But he was patronising to those of the Gaelic Easter method in the debate in the Synod; and, in the process, his bulldozer cracked a water main. When King Oswy decided that his entire state would follow the Deiran, i.e. Roman, outward ways of doing things, the Gaelic Scotic Christian Celts – insulted in the way things had been conducted by Oswy, not just beefing at the decision – packed their bags and made their way, via what is now Scotland, to what is now Ireland.

In my book, I call that the saddest moment in the history of the British Isles. Where there had been developing deep union of Martinian Life in the Holy Spirit of the Christian God, there grew up instead a renewed sense of ethnic division. It was the most tremendous shot in the foot for the proto-English: they rarely had as much good, from any source, and from that day to this, as they had from the Christian proto-Scots.

All that arising from a dispute about dating Easter…

Mind you, there was a positive side to the story as well. Jesus Christ taught that the good and the bad must grow together until he returns. Until then, if you uproot the bad, you will also uproot the good. Only he has authority to sort it, and only when the time comes. In fulfilment of this, there was good as well as bad arising out of the Synod of Whitby, as follows.

The Gaelic Celts were not the only ones who had been introducing the proto-English to the Martinian Life in the Holy Spirit of the Christian God. A Germanic people group called the Franks had been doing so as well: in East Anglia, in Wessex, and to reinforcing effect in Kent. The Franks already followed Roman Catholic methods. I call their way Romano Martinian. Now, after the Synod of Whitby, the northern kingdom, Northumbria, began to take that course as well. And so too, because its Christian spirituality was being shaped out of Northumbria, did the Midlands kingdom of Mercia.

So all were now on the one track. Northumbria was the most powerful of the small kingdoms as at 663/4. And in the next generation Mercia was to become Top Dog. Each of them would add their power to the shaping of a common Identity: Romano Gaelic Martinian Catholic Christian.

Now, if you recall from previous blogs, and as you can read in my book, “The Mustard Seed”, a world class Archbishop of Canterbury was about to arise, Theodore, 668-689. He created a consistent proto-national church within the many small sub-kingdoms. Romano Martinian Catholic outwardly but… he also took care to embed sparky Gaelic Martinian-derived spirituality into the leadership of it where possible. He disciplined Wilfrid in order to achieve that, bringing a fusion approach to Christian expression in the North in place of Wilfrid’s more partisan way.

The various kings watched how Theodore did things consistently within each small kingdom, and copied. The effect was that, after 668, the church became a foundation fit for unitary nation building, consistent in its processes, and consistent in a fusion of Romano Gaelic Martinian Catholic Life in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the course became set, from 664 after Whitby, via many twists and turns, from divided Anglo Saxon small kingdoms to the one Nation of the Christian English.

I would call that a good thing, not a bad thing, unless you would think it better that, in our own times, England should devolve back into fractious sub-kingdoms.

So, what came out of the resolution of the Easter dating dispute in Northumbria in 663/4? Significant outworkings of what some call The Law of Unintended Consequences. King Oswy never intended to fracture Celt from Anglo. And the idea of England did not exist. But resolving the dispute, he gave a hefty push to each.

Truly, the good and bad grow together, just as the Christ taught.