The Romans carried the day at the Synod of Whitby. Oswiu ordered that Roman practices should be adopted throughout his realm. Not all the monks of Lindisfarne were willing to abandon the customs of their father. Those that would not, withdrew from Lindisfarne, returning to Iona.

The church in Northumbria spent the next decades delicately balancing integrating the old Irish elements into the new church while trying to prevent the more zealous advocates of Rome denigrating the achievements of its founders. Much of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History is dedicated to achieving this balance.