Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England

Cf. especially III, 25, and V, 21. (Other references are: II, 4, 19; III, 3, 4, 26, 29; V, 15, 22.)

A full discussion of this involved question is beyond our scope. Readers are referred to Plummer (Excursus on Paschal Controversy), Bright, or Hunt. Here, the point at issue may be briefly stated. It was regarded as essential by the Roman Church that Easter Day should be kept on a Sunday, in the third week of the first month, i.e., the month in which the full moon occurred on or after the vernal equinox. The Celts observed the Feast on Sunday, and were, therefore, not rightly called “Quartodecimans” (the name given to those who observed it on the 14th of the month Nisan, the day of the Jewish Passover, without regard to the day of the week). They differed from the Romans in fixing the vernal equinox at March 25th, instead of March 21st, and in their reckoning of the third week, holding it to be from the 14th to the 20th of the moon inclusive. The Roman Church originally reckoned it from the 16th to the 22nd, but ultimately fixed it from the 15th to the 21st (cf. V, 21, p. 365).

There was a further divergence in the “cycles” adopted to ascertain the day in each year on which the Paschal moon would fall. The Celts retained an old cycle of eighty-four years, while the Romans had finally adopted one of nineteen. It is obvious that these differences must necessarily lead to great divergence in practice and consequently serious inconvenience. The real importance of this and the other points of difference, settled afterwards at the Synod of Whitby, lay in the question whether England was to conform to the practice of the Catholic Church, or to isolate herself from it by local peculiarities (cf. the reply of the British to Augustine: “They would do none of those things nor receive him as their archbishop”).

The following list of the English bishoprics at the time when Bede closed his history [731 a.d.], will enable the reader to recognize those which belonged to each separate kingdom:

KINGDOMS; SEES; PRELATES. Kent; Canterbury; Tatwine. Rochester; Aldwulf. East Saxons; London; Ingwald. East Angles; Dunwich; Aldbert. Elmham; Hadulac. West Saxons; Winchester; Daniel. Sherborne; Forthere. Mercia; Lichfield (to which Leicester had been reunited in 705); Aldwin. Hereford; Walhstod. Worcester; Wilfrid. Lindsey (Sidnacester); Cynibert. South Saxons; Selsey; Vacant. Northumbria; York; Wilfrid II. Lindisfarne; Ethelwald. Hexham; Acca. Whitern; Pechthelm.

For a full account of Bede's works, v. Plummer, vol. I, Introduction, or Dictionary of Christian Biography, s.v. “Beda.” Besides the works mentioned in this list, the following are certainly genuine:

The short “Epistola ad Albinum” (sent with a copy of the Ecclesiastical History).

“Retractationes in Acta.”

“Epistola ad Egberctum.”

“De locis Sanctis” (to which Bede alludes in V. 17). A number of other works, some certainly, others probably spurious, and a few possibly genuine, have been attributed to him.