Findan of Rheinau

Findan of Rheinau (Fintan, Findanus) was an Irish hermit, born in 803 or 804 in Leinster, Ireland, and reposed on 15 November 878 at Rheinau in Switzerland. He is venerated as a saint in the Western Church and commemorated on 15 November.

He was born into a noble family. He lost his parents and siblings in internal wars in Ireland and through abductions by the Vikings. He himself was enslaved by the Vikings (possibly handed over by his Irish enemies) and taken to the Orkney Islands, but was able to escape to Scotland. There he stayed with a bishop for two years and became a clergyman. In 845 he made a pilgrimage through the Frankish Empire to Rome. From there he went to the monastery of Farfa, where he lived as a monk for some time, then via Rhaetia to Swabia, or to the landgraviate of Klettgau, where he entered the service of the Alemannic nobleman Wolvene. Wolvene persuaded him after a few years to join his monastery at Rheinau as a monk, which he did in 851. From 856 he lived there walled in as a recluse until his death. His bones are kept in the Rheinau monastery church, in the reliquary in the Fintan altar. Shortly after his death the Life of Findan was written by a confrere of the monastery; it is considered reliable. His attributes in church art are a dove, a ducal hat and the monastic habit.

His Life is considered a relatively accurate description of the Viking Age slave trade; interwoven with the story of Melkorka from the Icelandic Laxdoela Saga, it was the basis of the documentary "Victims of the Vikings" (ORF/ZDF/Arte, 2021).