Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of tables
- List of figures
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- A note on pronunciation
- A note on the Chronicle of Ireland
- Introduction
- 1 Ireland in the seventh century: a tour
- 2 Irish society c. 700: I. Communities
- 3 Irish society c. 700: II Social distinctions and moral values
- 4 Ireland and Rome
- 5 Conversion to Christianity
- 6 The organisation of the early Irish Church
- 7 Columba, Iona and Lindisfarne
- 8 Columbanus and his disciples
- 9 The Paschal controversy
- 10 The primatial claims of Armagh, Kildare and Canterbury
- 11 The origins and rise of the Uí Néill
- 12 The kingship of Tara
- 13 The powers of kings
- 14 Conclusion
- Appendix: genealogies and king-lists
- Glossary: Irish and Latin
- Bibliography
- Index
9 - The Paschal controversy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of tables
- List of figures
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- A note on pronunciation
- A note on the Chronicle of Ireland
- Introduction
- 1 Ireland in the seventh century: a tour
- 2 Irish society c. 700: I. Communities
- 3 Irish society c. 700: II Social distinctions and moral values
- 4 Ireland and Rome
- 5 Conversion to Christianity
- 6 The organisation of the early Irish Church
- 7 Columba, Iona and Lindisfarne
- 8 Columbanus and his disciples
- 9 The Paschal controversy
- 10 The primatial claims of Armagh, Kildare and Canterbury
- 11 The origins and rise of the Uí Néill
- 12 The kingship of Tara
- 13 The powers of kings
- 14 Conclusion
- Appendix: genealogies and king-lists
- Glossary: Irish and Latin
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The paschal controversy arose from a question which, at first sight, seems to be of minor importance: the correct way of determining the date of Easter. Yet it was the most important dispute in the Irish Church until it was finally resolved in 716: most significantly, it divided the Irish Church into two opposing camps, the ‘Romans’ and the ‘Irish’ or ‘Hibernian’ party, governed by separate synods. There were, also, further consequences: the claims put forward by Kildare and Armagh that they were the sees of archbishops were largely stimulated by the dispute; it helped to sour relations between Columbanus and the Frankish episcopate; it hampered the progress of the Irish mission to the English, and, f or a time, even the Irish mission to the Picts. To understand why the paschal controversy could be of such importance for Irish churchmen, as well as for men of other nations concerned with the Irish Church (such as Athala, abbot of Bobbio, Eustasius, abbot of Luxeuil, or the Englishmen, Wilfrid and Bede), it is necessary, first, to have a rough understanding of how the date of Easter was fixed; secondly, to grasp the significance of the feast of Easter in the theology of the time; and, thirdly, to see how secondary issues became inextricably entangled with the primary issue.
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- Information
- Early Christian Ireland , pp. 391 - 415Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000