This post starts with brief summaries of the early days of monasteries, the different orders and the effects of the Reformation and Dissolution.
Abbeys & Monasteries features: Ampleforth, Bolton Abbey, Buckfastleigh, Byland Abbey, Fountains Abbey, Furness Abbey, Jervaulx Abbey, Kirkstall Abbey, Mount Grace Priory, Rievaulx Abbey, Sawley Abbey, Tintern, Torre Abbey (Torquay), Whalley Abbey and Whitby Abbey
Of course, with around 800 abbeys and monasteries in the country, I won’t be visiting them all…
The Arrival, Departure and Re-emergence of Christianity
Emperor Constantine gave official approval and toleration of Christianity in 313 and Theodosius made it the sole religion of the Roman Empire in 391. The Roman Empire imploded in the early 400s and the AngloSaxons who took over in Britain reintroduced paganism. Christianity was re-established across the country during the 7th century. Until around 800 there were 20 cathedrals across England. There were still 20 cathedrals by 1066 but Abercorn, Lindisfarne, Hexham, Whithorn, Ripon* and Dommoc had ceased to be cathedrals and were replaced by Chester le Street, Durham, Ramsbury, Crediton, Exeter and St Germans (Cornwall). Although there were some parish churches before around 900 it wasn’t until the 10th and 11th centuries that parish churches became common. See: The History of England’s Cathedrals – by Nicholas Orme
* Ripon became a cathedral again in 1836
In The Beginning
Early Christian monasticism started emerging in Egypt and Syria around the third century, where men began to seek out solitary existences devoted to prayer and meditation. St Anthony of Egypt (d.356) is considered to be the father of monasticism, having spent 80 years living as a hermit. Soon these individuals started to congregate into small communities for prayer and instruction. These monastic settlements spread to Byzantium and Western Europe. Saint Basil the Great (c. 330 – 379) created monastic rules that were generally followed within the Byzantine Empire. As Christianity spread into Ireland and parts of Great Britain during the late 4th and 5th centuries, monastic communities emerged in places such as Iona, Lindisfarne and Kildare. Several early Irish monks were noted for being missionaries, travelling to Great Britain and continental Europe to convert non-Christians. The main difference between friars and monks is that friars went out into the community to preach, while monks stayed in their monasteries.
Augustinian
Founded in 1244, this order follows the Rule of Augustine. Martin Luther was an Augustinian but was a friar, not a monk. Friars have pastoral duties in the outside world; monks are cloistered in a monastery. Augustinians wear black robes, symbolizing death to the world, and include both men and women (nuns).
Barnabites
The Clerics Regular of Saint Paul are commonly called Barnabites from their first major Church in Milan, which was dedicated to Saint Barnabas. The order was founded in 1530 by Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria (1502-1539), a learned and charitable medical doctor. Believing that souls were more in need of healing than bodies, he became a priest. Following the example of their founder, every Barnabite adds the name Mary to his. The Barnabites are Clerics Regular, that is, clerics doing any priestly work but living together under a special Rule, bound by solemn vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They aren’t actually monks but…
Basilian
Founded in 356, these monks and nuns follow the Rule of Basil the Great. This order is primarily Eastern Orthodox. Nuns work in schools, hospitals, and charitable organizations.
Beguines
Beguines are a lay order for women that began around the 12th century, they were most popular in the Netherlands and Germany. Focused on charity and prayer, some of the women involved were known for their mysticism and for getting in trouble with ecclesiastical authorities for their views.
Beghards
Beghards – a male lay order that emerged from the Beguines, it was centred around the Low Countries and France. Like the Beguines, men involved here did not take formal monastic vows but were committed to prayer and social work.
Benedictine
Benedict founded the abbey of Monte Cassino in Italy about 540, although technically he did not begin a separate order. Monasteries following the Benedictine Rule spread to England, much of Europe, then to North and South America. Benedictines also include nuns. The order is involved in education and missionary work. Known as the Black Monks because of their style of clothing, and were noted for their commitment to writing. Several medieval Popes were originally Benedictine monks.
Bernardines
There appear to be two orders of Bernardines: one a branch of the Cistercian order and the other a branch of the Franciscans – which makes me wonder how they differ from the Poor Clares. The Bernardines seem to have appeared in the 16th century – which is quite late and at odds with the reformations sweeping Europe at the time. They live according to the Rule of St. Benedict, seeking God as a community in a spirit of prayer, simplicity and silence. They take the traditional monastic vows and work in education and hospitality has always been an integral part of their life.
Capuchins
The Capuchin Franciscan Order began in 1528 as a renewal of the Order of Friars Minor. The friars of this reform movement wanted a life more focused on prayer and a stricter observance of poverty. These men were also fervent preachers of the Gospel and compassionate servants of the sick and suffering in their day. Attracting followers through their preaching, prayer, austerity, and service among the poor, the new reform movement grew rapidly and soon spread throughout all of Europe. The Capuchin Reform movement was given official approval by the Church in Pope Clement VII’s Papal Bull, Religionis Zelus. The Capuchins were established as an independent order within the Franciscan Family.
Carmelite
Founded in 1247, the Carmelites include friars, nuns, and laypeople. They follow the rule of Albert Avogadro, which includes poverty, chastity, obedience, manual labour, and silence for much of the day. Carmelites practice contemplation and meditation.
Carthusian
A reclusive order founded in Germany in 1084 dedicated to contemplation. They were noted for their austerity, where members lived in their own cells and spent several hours a day in prayer and meditation, except for daily mass and a Sunday meal. Visits are limited to family or relatives once or twice a year. Each house is self-supporting, but sales of an herb-based green liqueur called Chartreuse, made in France, help finance the order.
Cistercian
Founded by Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), this order has two branches, Cistercians of the Common Observance and Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappist). In following the rule of Benedict, the Strict Observance houses abstain from meat and take a vow of silence. Cistercians started with an abbey founded at Citeaux, France in 1098, they valued manual labour, self-sufficiency and a return to a more literal adoption of the Benedictine rules. Called the White Monks for wearing white cloaks.
Cluniacs
Cluniacs – a reformed component within the Benedictines, this order was centred around the monastery of Cluny in France. Founded in 910, they believed that monastic rules had grown lax and too involved in secular affairs. These monks followed stricter practices and spent more time in prayer. They spread out to other parts of Europe, so by the 12th century there were about 300 houses, all subordinate to the abbot of Cluny.
Dominican
This Catholic “Order of Preachers” founded by Dominic about 1206 follows the rule of Augustine. Consecrated members live communally and take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Women may live cloistered in a monastery as nuns or may be apostolic sisters who work in schools, hospitals, and social settings. The order also has lay members. Similar to Franciscans, and also known as mendicants or black friars, they have traditionally worn black and white robes and survived by wandering the countryside and begging for alms. Like the Franciscans, the Dominicans had a lot to with making Christianity accessible to ordinary people. On the down side, Dominicans have traditionally been close to power brokers, the bishops, and been associated with extremism. They were often administers of torture during the Inquisition and were called in to interrogate suspected heretics. The Dominicans popularized the expression “Hail Mary.”
Franciscan
Founded by Francis of Assisi about 1209, Franciscans include three orders: Friars Minor; Poor Clares (or nuns); and a third order of laypeople. Friars are further divided into Friars Minor Conventual and Friars Minor Capuchin. The Conventual branch owns some property (monasteries, churches, schools), while the Capuchins closely follow the rule of Francis. The order includes priests, brothers, and nuns who wear brown robes.
Gilbertine
The Gilbertine Order, the only British order, was founded by Gilbert of Sempringham in 1130. Most of the priories associated with the order are in Lincolnshire. The men followed the Augustinians and were all canons whilst the women were Benedictine. The Gilbertines seem not to have survived the dissolution.
Grandmontines
The Grandmontines are one of the lesser-known monastic orders of the Middle Ages, founded in the early twelfth century by St Stephen of Murat, and which held around 98 houses. They were one of the most austere orders, based on the principal of complete poverty where the community should live as hermits albeit within communal buildings and limited to thirteen: the prior and twelve monks, to mirror Christ and his disciples. They often sought out remote and inaccessible places; most of their priories were located in France, but three were set up in England. Despite their poverty, they were supported by royalty, particularly Henry II (also a keen supporter of the Knights Templar), who was buried in the mother house at Grandmont. They were the object of papal scrutiny at the same time as the Templars as the order had become lax, but managed to survive through reform.
Lazarists (aka Vincentians)
The Vincentians were a society of priests and brothers founded at St Lazare, Paris (hence Lazarists) in 1625 by St Vincent de Paul for the purpose of preaching missions to the poor country people and training young men in seminaries for the priesthood.
Norbertine
Also known as the Premonstratensians, this order was founded by Norbert in France in 1120. It includes Catholic priests, brothers, and sisters. They profess poverty, celibacy, and obedience and divide their time between contemplation in their community and work in the outside world. Also called the White Canons, this order was involved with converting pagan peoples in Eastern Europe.
Pallottine
The Pallottine Fathers and Brothers of the Immaculate Conception and the Pallottine Missionary Sisters of the Catholic Apostolate were founded by the Roman priest Vincent Pallotti – later St Vincent Pallotti – in 1835 after the cholera epidemic in Rome.
Paulines
The Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit, also known as Pauline Fathers and Brothers, are spiritual sons of Saint Paul of Thebes, who is considered to be the first known hermit in the Christian tradition. In 1225, Bishop Bartholomew built the monastery of St. James on the Ürög’s Mountain in Hungary for the hermits and gave them the rule of life. This year is considered as the beginning of our Order. In 1250, Blessed Eusebius built a monastery of St. Cross, in the Pilis Mountains. Later, the monastery of St. James merged with the monastery of St. Cross, creating one congregation of hermits. They adopted white habits in 1340.
Today the Pauline Order is a semi-contemplative religious community, which means that every monk cherishes the contemplation of God in prayer, in solitude, and in a community and connects it with pastoral work. The Pauline Fathers are especially known for working at numerous Marian shrines throughout the world and fostering a devotion to the Mother of God, especially in the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa.
Poor Clares
St Clare of Assisi was a friend and contemporary of St Francis of Assisi and together they founded the Poor Clares in 1212, a group within the Franciscan minor friars. She was the first woman to write a rule for other women. Her vision was the idea of exchange. Everything she and her sisters made or grew they gave to others, and others in turn gave to the sisters. In this way they really shared the lives and poverty of those around them. This idea came to both Francis and Clare from the way that Jesus Christ shared our human life, and lived in poverty too. They felt that the fewer things they had the more room they had for God in their hearts. This did not endear her to the Pope and bishops of the time as they didn’t share her enthusiasm for poverty and piety. She died in 1253 and was proclaimed a saint in 1255. There are 4 groups within the Clares:
- Order of Saint Clare (OSC), who live according to the original rule of St. Clare of Assisi
- Poor Clare Colettines (PCC), who live according to the 15th century reforms of St. Colette of Corbie
- Capuchin Poor Clares (OSC Cap), who live according to 16th century Capuchin reforms
- Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration (PCPA), who live according to the 1854 charism of Mother Marie Claire Bouillevaux
Salvatorians
The Salvatorians are a relatively modern teaching order founded by John Baptist Jordan, who was born in 1848 in Gurtweil, Germany. He was an itinerant labourer and painter-decorator and during his travels saw how government constraints – known as the “Kulturkampf” – discouraged Roman Catholics from practicing their faith. In 1878 he was ordained as a priest. In 1880 he met Pope Leo XIII and outlined his vision to found a society devoted to teaching of the faith. The pope gave Jordan his blessing and the Society of the Divine Saviour was founded (later to become the Salvatorians). Therese Von Wülleweber joined them and co-founded the Sisters of the Divine Saviour.
Salesian
Savignacs
The Savignac order was one of the reformed orders which developed in France in the early 12th century as a reaction against the corruption and excesses which characterised established orders. The founding house at Savigny in France was established between 1109-12. By 1148 they had merged with the Cistercians. Furness Abbey was probably their most important house in England.
Servites
A war in Tuscany in 1233 seems to have been the catalyst for forming the Servites. Seven prosperous men met regularly in Florence as members of a religious society established in honour of Mary, the Mother of God. Eventually, they left behind their former lives and went to live together. This event is also believed to have happened in 1233 which is regarded as the foundation date of the order. Coming to be known as the Friar Servants of Mary, others joined the first seven on Monte Senario, and as the group continued to grow, the seeds of the new religious Order took root. The Friar Servants of Mary were approved as a religious Order by the bishop of Florence sometime between the years 1240 and 1247. In the year 1304, the Order of Friar Servants of Mary received definitive approval as a religious Order in the Church by the Holy See.
Theatines
A religious order founded in Rome, 1524, by St. Cajetan of Thiene (or Kajetan), Gian Pietro Carafa (who later became Pope Paul IV), Bonifacio de’ Colli (d. 1558), and Paolo Ghisleri. Carafa had been bishop of Chieti – Theate in Latin, hence Theatines. They had previously been members of the Oratory of Divine Love, an association of clerics and laymen who sought to promote the reform of Catholic life in the early 16th century.
Cajetan and his associates decided to lead the way in the reform of clerical life by forming a religious order dedicated to high standards of asceticism and apostolic work under the vows of chastity, obedience, and absolute poverty. They rejected all benefices and devoted themselves to the service of the faithful, especially the poor and the sick.
Trappist
The Trappist are a branch of the Cistercian movement. They are famous for the privations which they subject themselves. Some eat only strict vegetarian meals and communicate with each other in sign language so they can uphold vows of silence.
Trinitarians
Trinitarians, also called Mathurins or Red Friars, were founded in 1198 by Saint John of Matha, initially to help ransom Christian captives from Muslim lands. They also spent large amounts of their money on alms for the poor, provide hospitality for pilgrims, care for the sick or infirm, restoration of church buildings, and evangelical outreach. The Trinitarians were always especially active in their local communities, encouraging education as a form of religious devotion.
Ursulines
The Ursulines were founded in Italy, 1535 by Angela Merici. St Angela, as she became, put her new company under the patronage of St Ursula, an early English saint, who was popular in the middle ages as the patroness of learning. St Angela offered women an alternative to enclosed religious life, which was radical at the time. The members of the Company were consecrated as spouses of the Son of God, but without vows, living in their own homes and continuing their work. The form of government of the Company was lay and feminine, underlining Angela’s confidence in a woman’s ability to discern, to judge for herself, to govern herself. After Angela’s death, members gradually came to live together in convents, with enclosure and vows. The first convent was established in 1612 in Paris and this was the beginning of the Order of St Ursula. While the Ursuline way of life was changing, the sisters continued their ministry of teaching Christian doctrine and continued to teach in the schools of Christian Doctrine, set up after the Council of Trent (1545-63) to combat “religious ignorance”. By this the Catholic Church meant to discredit the Protestant reformation. While there were, for example, 400 convents in France during the 18th century, the Ursuline Sisters didn’t come to England until 1851. The convents had always been autonomous but in 1900, Pope Leo XIII invited Ursuline convents around the world to come together in a union. Many joined what became the Roman Union, other unions were formed and some remain independent.
Valliscaulian Order
A religious order of men deriving its name from the place of foundation, Vallis Caulium or Val-des-Choux, in Burgundy. In the 12th century, Viard, a lay brother in the Carthusian Priory of Loubigny in the diocese of Langres, secured permission to live as a hermit in the woods. The Duke of Burgundy built a church and a monastery on the site in fulfillment of a vow he had and Viard became the first prior. The monks wore the Cistercian habit, but the constitution was based on Carthusian Rule. At its height, the Valliscaulians had 30 priories, including 3 in Scotland. Oddly, only the names of 20 priories are known. During the 18th century, the order joined the Cistercians with the exception of Pluscarden, which became a cell of the Benedictine Abbey of Dunfermline…
Saints
There are around 10,000 saints. Pope Francis canonized 813 souls in May 2013, so the Catholic Church is still busy creating new saints. No one seems to know for sure who the first saint was – and those that think they do can’t agree. Strangely, while Protestant churches are generally named after saints, there aren’t any Protestant saints…
According to http://www.gcatholic.org there are 173 English saints and a further 246 blesseds – which is interesting in itself as I’d not heard of the term nor knew what it meant.
I’ve often wondered why we have St George as our patron saint. He was born in Cappadocia (modern day Türkiye) c280 and is also the patron saint of Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Lithuania and Portugal. You’d think we could have our own, unique patron saint – like St Alban, for instance, the first recorded British Christian martyr (c304)…
So: who did decide that it would be St George? It was Edward III back in 1350 when he formed the Order of the Garter…
According to http://www.catholic.com: There are several steps in the Church’s process of declaring someone a saint. From first to last, the corresponding titles are Servant of God, Venerable, Blessed, and Saint. “Blesseds” are those who have been beatified. Beatification requires one attested miracle and allows the beatified person to be venerated by their local church. Canonization requires two attested miracles and allows veneration of the saint by the universal Church. Canonization is an infallible statement by the Church that the saint is in heaven.
The Reformation and Dissolution
Between 1536 and 1540 Henry VIII took over 800 monasteries, abbeys, nunneries and friaries, some of which had accumulated great wealth and land. These had been home to more than 10,000 monks, nuns, friars and canons. Many former monasteries were sold off to landowners. Others were taken over and became churches, such as Durham Cathedral. Many were left to ruin, such as Tintern Abbey. A few monks who resisted were executed, but those who surrendered were paid or pensioned off.
See: https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item106122.html
The Reformation in Tudor England was a time of unprecedented change. One of the major outcomes of the Reformation was the destruction of the monasteries which began in 1536. The Reformation came about when Henry VIII wished to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, who had failed to give him a male heir. When the Pope refused to grant the divorce, Henry set up the Church of England. The Act of Supremacy in 1534 confirmed the break from Rome, declaring Henry to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England.
The monasteries were a reminder of the power of the Catholic Church and were the wealthiest institutions in the country. Henry’s lifestyle, along with his wars, had left him with a distinct lack of money. Monasteries owned over a quarter of all the cultivated land in England. By destroying the monastic system Henry could acquire all its wealth and property whilst removing its Papist influence.
The idea was not new. Thomas Cromwell had already helped Cardinal Wolsey dissolve monasteries in the past. First of all, a dossier was presented to Parliament outlining the corrupt morals of the clergy. Henry’s chief minister Cromwell then introduced the ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus’ to find out just how much property was owned by the Church. He sent out royal commissioners to all the monasteries in England, Wales and Ireland.
This led to the Act of Suppression in 1536 whereby small monasteries with an income of less than £200 a year were closed and their buildings, land and money taken by the Crown. The Second Suppression Act of 1539 allowed the dissolution of the larger monasteries and religious houses. Monastic land and buildings were confiscated and sold off to families who sympathised with Henry’s break from Rome. By 1540 monasteries were being dismantled at a rate of fifty a month. After the disposal of their monastic lands and buildings, the majority of monks, friars and nuns were given money or pensions. However, there were some abbots and religious house leaders who refused to comply. They were executed and their monasteries destroyed. Thousands of monastic servants suddenly found themselves without employment.
Many people, particularly in the North of England, were against the Dissolution. Here the old Catholic faith remained especially strong. In October 1536 a large rebel army of over 30,000 people marched to York and demanded that the monasteries should be reopened. This march became known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. The rebels were promised a pardon and a Parliament in York to discuss their demands, and they disbanded. However, Henry had given orders that the leaders of the rebellion should be arrested and around 200 people were executed.
So what were the immediate effects of the Dissolution of the Monasteries? Firstly, vast amounts of monastic land, gold and silver plate were transferred to the Crown. It is said that the King’s own treasury profited by about one and a half million pounds. However a great deal of the wealth Henry acquired through the Dissolution was spent on his wars with France and Scotland. The gentry and rich merchants who bought the land also prospered.
One of the saddest legacies of the Dissolution was the loss and destruction of monastic libraries and their precious illuminated manuscripts.
See: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Dissolution-of-the-Monasteries
Ampleforth
Bolton Abbey
As is often the way in England, names can be confusing. Leeds Castle, for example, is in Kent – not Yorkshire. And so it is with Bolton Abbey. It isn’t an abbey – it’s a priory; it isn’t in Lancashire and it is on land owned by the Duke of Devonshire, who doesn’t live in Devon. The Duke of Devonshire’s seat is the glorious Chatsworth House, set in beautiful Derbyshire countryside https://www.chatsworth.org/https://whoownsengland.org/…/the-dukes-their-tax…/
Buckfastleigh
Byland Abbey
Fountains Abbey
Furness Abbey
The history of Furness Abbey can be traced back to 1124, when a community of monks settled at Tulketh, near Preston. Their founder was Stephen, then the Count of Boulogne and Mortain and lord of Lancaster, and later King of England (1135–54). The austere, reforming monks came from Savigny, a monastery in Normandy, which at this time was establishing a series of ‘daughter’ houses. In 1127, the monks moved from Tulketh to the ‘vale of nightshade’ on the Furness peninsula, which was then part of Lancashire. This seemingly remote site was actually an ideal location for a monastery. It had a supply of fresh water and ready access to building materials in the form of timber and stone, and communication with the wider world was facilitated by the abbey’s proximity to the sea. In 1147 all Savignac monasteries were absorbed into the larger Cistercian order.
Furness was soon to be caught up in the religious changes of the reign of Henry VIII (1509–47). The wealth of the church was assessed, and Furness was found to have an annual income of £805, making it the wealthiest monastery in the region and the second richest Cistercian abbey in England. Henry’s religious reforms were far from universally popular. His dissolution of the ‘lesser monasteries’ (those with fewer than 12 monks or nuns and an income below £200 a year) in 1536 was a major reason for a rebellion in northern England called the Pilgrimage of Grace. Abbot Pyle ‘voluntarily’ surrendered Furness to the Crown in the spring of 1537.
See: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/furness-abbey/
Jervaulx Abbey
Kirkstall Abbey
Mount Grace Priory
Rievaulx Abbey
Sawley Abbey
Sawley Abbey was founded in 1146 on land given by William, third Lord Percy. The Percys, Northumberland’s greatest family, remained patrons of the abbey for much of its existence.
The help of these wealthy benefactors proved invaluable in the 1280s when it seemed likely that the monks would abandon the site: they claimed that poor harvests, marshy ground and the inhospitable climate made life at Sawley untenable. In response, Maud de Percy, Countess of Warwick, gave valuable lands and churches at Rimington (near Barnoldswick), Ilkley, Gargrave and Tadcaster. With this new endowment the monks stayed put.
Their problems, though, did not disappear. In 1296 Stanlaw Abbey in Cheshire was refounded at Whalley, nine miles from Sawley, and the two Cistercian houses immediately quarrelled. Their lands adjoined and they squabbled over grain supplies and fishing rights in the river Ribble.
The feuding officially ended in 1305, but the monks of Sawley, the senior foundation, continued to feel aggrieved. Sawley was considerably poorer than Whalley: it was impoverished by litigation, the ‘cruel and inhuman spoliation’ that accompanied Scottish raids about 1320, and the expense of providing board and lodging to travellers – unlike many Cistercian houses it lay on a busy main road.
In spring 1536 Sawley surrendered during Henry VIII’s Suppression of the Monasteries. However, that autumn, during the northern rising known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, the abbey was restored under a new abbot, William Trafford. The rebellion failed and Trafford was hanged at Lancaster in March 1537 and the abbey immediately plundered of its valuables.
During the following three centuries all the high-quality stone was taken and reused in neighbouring farms and cottages, and many of the abbey buildings disappeared. In 1848 the first archaeological investigation of the ruins was undertaken, and during the 20th century the site was taken into the care of the state, cleared of debris and conserved.
See: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/sawley-abbey/history/
Tintern Abbey
The Abbey was founded in 1131 by Cistercian monks, initially built of timber, a simple stone church and cloisters came later. In 1269 they began to build a new abbey church and created one of the masterpieces of British Gothic architecture. The great west front with its seven-lancet window and the soaring arches of the nave still take the breath away.
So grateful were the monks to their powerful patron Roger Bigod that they were still handing out alms on his behalf in 1535. But by 1536 Tintern had surrendered in the first round of the dissolution of the monasteries — and the great abbey began slowly to turn into a majestic ruin…
See: https://cadw.gov.wales/visit/places-to-visit/tintern-abbey
Torre Abbey
Whalley Abbey
Whalley Abbey, second richest of Lancashire’s monasteries, was founded in 1296, when the Cistercian monks of Stanlaw moved there from their flood-prone site on the Cheshire shore of the River Mersey near Ellesmere Port. It now belongs to the Diocese of Blackburn…
Whitby Abbey
Easter and the Synod of Whitby:
The dates of our Easter holidays seem hard to predict from year to year, but in 7th-century England things were even more confusing. There was no agreement among Christian groups on when to celebrate Easter, and it became the subject of heated discussion. At a landmark meeting known to us as the Synod of Whitby, Christian missionaries gathered at Whitby Abbey to put forward their respective arguments, and a formula was finally settled upon – the one that we still use today to determine the dates of Easter.
The Christian feast of Easter commemorates Christ’s suffering and death on the cross (Good Friday) and his resurrection three days later (Easter Sunday). The Gospels tell us this happened during the Jewish festival of the Passover, the date of which is determined by the lunar calendar, or the monthly cycle of the moon. The early Christian Church adopted this lunar calculation for the date of Easter. In the early 4th century, it was agreed that Christ’s Resurrection on Easter Sunday must be celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.
This seems simple enough. However, there was disagreement about the date of the Spring Equinox, the days of the lunar month on which it was permissible for Easter Sunday to fall, and even the hour of the day when Easter Sunday began. Different traditions, each capable of appealing to well-established precedent, had their own methods for calculating the date of Easter. In the middle of the 7th century, two such traditions came head-to-head in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria.
In the 5th century, Anglo-Saxons invaded and settled in what had been the Roman province of Britannia. These invaders did not share the Christian beliefs of many people in late Roman Britain, who were subsequently pushed to the western fringes of the British Isles. Starting in the late 6th century, efforts were made to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. In 597, monks sent by Pope Gregory the Great arrived in Kent. Under the leadership of St Augustine they established a base at Canterbury and gradually spread the Christian message across the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Irish monks, via their monastery at Iona off the western shores of Scotland, undertook a simultaneous and quite independent campaign of conversion.
Northumbria, then the dominant Anglo-Saxon kingdom, was Christianised from the 620s onwards by both Roman and Irish missionaries. But the Roman and Irish traditions had different practices, particularly in their ways of calculating the date of Easter. This inevitably led to disagreements about when Easter should be kept, which even extended to the royal household. Oswiu, King of Northumbria between 654 and 670, became a Christian under the influence of Irish monks. However, his wife, Queen Eanflaed, was from Kent and followed Roman practices. One year, the king was happily celebrating Easter Sunday while his wife was still keeping her austere Lenten fast and observing Palm Sunday. Since Easter is the pivotal event in the Christian calendar, these issues were not just inconvenient. Some Northumbrian nobles began to wonder if they had made a mistake in adopting the Christian faith.
In 664 Oswiu decided to settle the matter by calling a meeting of leading churchmen and nobles at the monastery he had founded at Whitby – or Streaneshalch as it was then known – which was then governed by his kinswoman, Abbess Hild. We know this meeting as the Synod of Whitby. Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne, presented the Irish case, with Wilfrid, a Northumbrian who had travelled to the Continent and was now abbot of Ripon, speaking for the Roman side. Each appealed to traditions established by Christ’s Apostles. Colman said he was following the practice of St John, maintained by the Irish missionary, St Columba of Iona.
Wilfrid called upon the authority of St Peter. When Oswiu asked who was the gatekeeper of heaven’, he quoted Christ’s words in the Gospel of St Matthew. As Colman could not cite similar authority for his position, Oswiu decided that Roman practices, including the method for calculating the date of Easter, should prevail. Most of those present agreed with the decision, though Colman and a few followers who refused to conform to Roman practices withdrew to Iona.
Some historians have interpreted the synod as evidence of a clash between the centralising, authoritarian papacy in Rome and an independent native ‘Celtic’ or British Church. For these historians, events in 7th-century Northumbria foreshadowed the Reformation of the 16th century and the establishment of the Protestant Church of England, which rejected papal authority. But in reality, this was far from being the case. The Irish and Roman missionaries shared the same fundamental beliefs – there was much more that united them than divided them. By the time of the synod, the southern Irish had already adopted the Roman calculation of Easter, which by the early 8th century was also being followed by monks at Iona. By standardising the practices of the Northumbrian Church according to the Roman tradition, the synod was a landmark in the history of the Church in England – one which brought together two Christian traditions already in the process of merging. From this point on, Anglo-Saxon Christians celebrated Easter, the holiest of all Christian festivals, on the same day as their co-religionists in mainland Europe. This unity of observance endures to this day.