Held in 664 AD at the double monastery of Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire, England, this church council was summoned by King Oswiu of Northumbria to resolve deep liturgical differences between Celtic and Roman Christian traditions. The primary disputes centered around the calculation of the date of Easter and the style of the monastic tonsure. King Oswiu ultimately ruled in favor of the Roman tradition, standardizing religious practices across Anglo-Saxon England and aligning the Northumbrian church directly with the institutional authority of the Papacy in Rome.

By aligning England with continental Rome, the Synod facilitated a massive influx of Latin manuscripts, classical poetry, and liturgical art into Northumbria. This rich academic environment directly fostered the intellectual brilliance of scholar-poets like the Venerable Bede and Alcuin of York, sparking an early medieval literary renaissance.