WHITBY, SYNOD OF: An assembly convened by Oswy, king of Northumbria, in the spring of 664 to settle the differences between the Irish and Roman ecclesiastics in his realm concerning the date of Easter, the shape of the tonsure, and the like (see Celtic Church In Britain and Ireland). Oswy's marriage with Eansfled, daughter of the king of Kent, had brought the dispute to a crisis, as the king adhered to the Celtic usages brought to North England from Iona, while the southern princess, coming from the region of Canterbury, followed Roman custom and brought with her to the north a Catholic chaplain. The assembly met at Hilda's convent at Streanaeshalch (Whitby, on the coast of Yorkshire, 40 m. n.n.e. of York). Oswy presided, and among those present were Alchfrid, king of Deira, Oswy's son; Agilbert, bishop of the West Saxons (a native of Gaul); Wilfrid, afterward bishop of York; Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne; Cedd, bishop of the East Saxons; and Hilda. Wilfrid spoke for the Roman party and Colman for the British. The latter claimed to follow St. John and Columba, whereupon Wilfrid asserted the supremacy of St. Peter and quoted Matt. xvi. 18, thereby convincing the king. In consequence of his defeat Colman and the Irish monks, with about thirty of the Angles, left Northumbria. His successor, Tuda, died in a short time of the plague and Wilfrid was then chosen, bishop ,and the see was removed to York.

Bibliography: Bede, Hist. eccl., iii. 25, in Plummer's ed., i. 183-189. ii. 189-192; Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, iii. 100-105; W. Bright, Early English Church History; pp. 222-232, 3i1 ed., Oxford, 1897; J. H. Overton, .The Church in -England, i. 59-63, 73 et passim, London, 1897; W. Hunt, The English Church (697-1066), pp.109-115,128, ib. 1899.

WHITBY, DANIEL: Controversial writer and commentator; b. at Rushden (14 m. n.e. of Northampton), Northamptonshire, Mar. 24, 1638; d. at Salisbury Mar. 24, 17.25. He entered Oxford as a commoner of Trinity College in 1653 (B.A., 1657) and was elected fellow in 1664. Four years later he was appointed chaplain to Seth Ward, bishop of Salisbury, who almost immediately made him prebendary of Yatesbury and.Husborn-Tarrant, and in 1669 perpetual curate of St.. Thomas' and rector of St. Edmund's, Salisbury. He was installed preceptor at Salisbury in 1672, and in 1696 was given the prebend of Taunton-Regis. His first book was Romish Doctrines not from the Beginning (London, 1664), 'and' it was followed during the next twentyfive years by ten or a dozen similar works against the Roman Catholic Church. At first his writings were well received, but in 1682, in The Protestant Reeonciler Humbly Pleading for Condescension to Dissenting Brethren in Things Immaterial, he expressed opinions concerning "things immaterial," which were accounted too liberal by the High-church party, and the University of Oxford ordered the book to be burned in the quadrangle, while Bishop Ward compelled the author to retract. A " second part " was then issued urging dissenters to conform. Whitby also wrote on Christian evidences, against Calvinism, on the Fathers, and on the Trinity. On the topic last named, he began with the orthodox doctrine (cf. Tractat2cs de a;era Christi deitate adyersus Arii et Socini haereses [Oxford, 1691]), but his view changed; and his Last Thoughts (published posthumously by his direction, ed. A. A. Sykes, London, 1727; reprinted by the Unitarian Association, 1841) reveals him as a convinced Unitarian.- His magnum opus was a Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament (2 vols., London, 1703), the fruit of fifteen years' labor, which, combined with the work of Simon Patrick (q.v.), Richard Arnold, William Lowth (q.v.), and Moses, Lowman in the popular Critical Commentary on the Old and New Testaments and Apocrypha (London, 1809), has had a longer life than it deserved (reprinted 1857). He is described as small and very thin physically,- affable in manner, sincerely pious and unselfish, and possessed of a remarkable memory, which, with his other faculties (except eyesight), he retained unimpaired to the end of his life. On the day before his death he preached extemporaneously in church. He spent his life in his study, indulging in but one relaxation (tobacco), and was a child in all business matters.

Bibliography: A Short Account of the Life, etc., was prefixed by Sykes to the Last Thoughts, ut sup. Consult: A. h Wood, Athens Oxonienses, ed. P. Bliss, iv. 871, and Faso, ii. 198, 223, 332-333, 4 vols.. London, 1813-20; DNB, Ixi. 28-30.

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