Fintan of Rheinau

Fintan of Rheinau (d. 879), hermit. Born in Leinster, captured and enslaved by Vikings who took him to the Orkneys, Fintan escaped and was protected by an unnamed Scottish bishop. He made a pilgrimage to Rome; on his way back he joined a group of hermits on an island in the Rhine near Schaffhausen, where he spent the rest of his life. The Sacramentary of Zurich (Kantonsbibl. 30) of ‘Gelasian’ type, which contains a calendar with Irish saints, may have been his. His relics at Rheinau, enshrined in 1446, still survive. Feast: 15 November.

Bibliography
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• Early Life in M.G.H., Scriptores, xv. 503–6; L. Gougaud, Les Saints irlandais hors d'Irlande (1936), pp. 95–6; B.L.S., xi. 122–3; The Irish Saints, pp. 122–3