'Celt' and 'Roman' takes a new look at the relationships between representatives of the British and Irish churches on the one hand, and those of the continental churches on the other, c. 590-735. It focuses on the repercussions of their differences, and explores the ramifications of their respective handling of the 'Easter' question. In a new theory, 'Celt' and 'Roman' argues that in the 620s this question was interpreted as a matter of heresy, and provides an exciting intervention into the scholarly debate surrounding the period. It is also concerned with the transformations of the roles of Columbanus and Aidan in Jonas's Life of Columbanus and Bede's Ecclesiastical History. By arguing that both historians attempted to obscure the fact that, to many people, Columbanus and Aidan had been heretics, Stancliffe proposes that both commentators deliberately selected, shaped, and concealed elements of their material to suit their own purposes. Indeed, so successful were they that they have prevented their readers, from the medieval period and right down to the present, from grasping the very serious nature of these debates.