Welsh Journals

THE CHARACTER OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN RADNORSHIRE PART II By R. W. D. FENN So far no account has been taken of the Synod of Whitby and the building of Offa's Dyke, both events which, on the face of things, might be expected to have modified the Anglo-Welsh Christian relationship on the Marches. The Synod was held in 664 to discuss "the question of Easter, the tonsure, and various other ecclesiastical matters."44 The Celts were unwilling to abandon a system of calculating the date for Easter which had been given up at Rome in 525, though its use persisted in Gaul and Britain. They were not unaware of the new system, and their refusal to adopt it cannot be entirely separated from a degree of traditional Celtic obstinacy. The situation had not been improved by the tactless handling of Augustine and his successor Laurentius, and the growth in the number of Christians in Britain meant that the matter was no longer merely academic. Situations were arising in which Christians of different back- grounds but living in the same community were keeping Easter at different times. It was uneasily agreed at Whitby to adopt the system used at Rome, but the Synod was an internal Northumbrian affair. Even if it was a general council of the Church in England, it was not representative of British Christianity as a whole.45 Deusdedit, archbishop of Canterbury, was not present, having died earlier that year, nor were any representa- tives from Wales and the South-West. Severe outbreaks of bubonic plague in 663 and 664, in which many bishops and political leaders died, made general representation at the Synod impossible. Its decisions made little impact upon the Church in Wales, where some Celtic irreconcilables made their way from the north. Northern Ireland adopted the new system c. 704, Iona and the Picts c. 716, and Wales began to change over in 768 when Elbodugus, bishop in Gwynedd, accepted it. The Britons of Devon and Cornwall were the last to forsake the old system. The new Easter was certainly kept in Mercia after 672 as a result of the Synod of Hertford.46 Convened by Archbishop Theodore as part of his programme of reformation for the Church in England, it was attended by the bishop of Mercia. But the character of its Christianity was still very Celtic. So much so in fact, that Theodore decided to subdivide the Mercian and Northumbrian dioceses, the two regions of England where the Celtic background was strongest.47 But despite this zeal for reforma- tion, when Theodore came to draw up a penitential for use in the Church in England he set the seal of his authority upon the Celtic system of spiritual discipline by drawing upon the earlier compilations of Gildas and Finnian. In 747 the Council of Clofeshoh ordered the general adoption of Roman sacramental usages throughout the English dioceses, an admission that the Roman liturgy was still only partially used in England.48 The same council referred to the observance of Rogation Days as a tradition of the