, but of Columba. Whatever claims of
supremacy over the whole English Church might be pressed by the see of
Canterbury, the real metropolitan of the Church as it existed in the
North of England was the Abbot of Iona. But Oswiu's queen brought with
her from Kent the loyalty of the Kentish Church to the Roman See; and the
visit of two young thegns to the Imperial City raised their love of Rome
into a passionate fanaticism. The elder of these, Benedict Biscop,
returned to denounce the usages in which the Irish Church differed from
the Roman as schismatic; and the vigour of his comrade Wilfrid stirred so
hot a strife that Oswiu was prevailed upon to summon in 664 a great
council at Whitby, where the future ecclesiastical allegiance of his
realm should be decided. The points actually contested were trivial
enough. Colman, Aidan's successor at Holy Island, pleaded for the Irish
fashion of the tonsure, and for the Irish time of keeping Easter: Wilfrid
pleaded for the Roman. The one disputant appealed to the authority of
Columba, the other to that of St. Peter. "You own," cried the king at
last to Colman, "that Christ gave to Peter the keys of the kingdom of
heaven--has He given such power to Columba?" The bishop could but answer
"No." "Then will I rather obey the porter of heaven," said Oswiu, "lest
when I reach its gates he who has the keys in his keeping turn his back
on me, and there be none to open." The humorous tone of Oswiu's decision
could not hide its importance, and the synod had no sooner broken up than
Colman, followed by the whole of the Irish-born brethren and thirty of
their English fellows, forsook the see of St. Aidan and sailed away to
Iona. Trivial in fact as were the actual points of difference which
severed the Roman Church from the Irish, the question to which communion
Northumbria should belong was of immense moment to the after fortunes of
England. Had the Church of Aidan finally won, the later ecclesiastical
history of England would probably have resembled that of Ireland. Devoid
of that power of organization which was the strength of the Roman Church,
the Celtic Church in its own Irish home took the clan system of the
country as the basis of its government. Tribal quarrels and
ecclesiastical controversies became inextricably confounded; and the
clergy, robbed of all really spiritual influence, contributed no element
save that of disorder to the state. Hundreds of wandering bishops, a vast
religious auth