Talk:Aidan of Lindisfarne

Spelling and date of death

All of the following links show the name spelling as Aidan rather than Aiden, and the date of death as 651:

• The Catholic Encyclopedia
• Irelandseye.com
• Early British Kingdoms
• Lindisfarne's own website

Please provide several good references before changing the spelling and name in the article again. -- Roleplayer 23:32, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"Aidan is the Anglicised form of the original Old Irish Aodhán"

Aodhán is not Old Irish. It is modern Irish. The Old Irish spelling is Áedán (see, for example, 86.30.186.10 (talk) 18:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)Anonymous just to let you know it is spelt Aidan not Aiden!!

References

Aiden was not "restoring" Christianity"

I just thought I'd let people know that I tweaked some of the phrasing in this article. Before it gave the impression that Christianity had some sort of history with the Northumbrians.

It said "due to the fall of the Roman Empire Anglo-Saxon Paganism was seeing a resurgence". This is misleading. Anglo-Saxon Paganism was not seeing a resurgence, it was simply the dominant religion and had been since the Anglo-Saxon conquest. It hadn't existed at some previous point and then gone away.

It also said Aiden "restored" Christianity to the Northumbrian communites. Yes King Edwin had accepted baptism in 627, but that was only 6 years before Osric and Eanfrith returned. So it seems more likely that the general public of Northumbria had simply remained Pagan for those 6 years, rather than a mass conversion to Christianity sometime after 627 and then a mass return to Paganism in 633. Æscing (talk) 16:18, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

"... whose diocese included Lindisfarne"

To say "Bishop Lightfoot, whose diocese included Lindisfarne ..." may not be misleading, but it is less than fully informative. Bishop Lightfoot was Bishop of Durham, and the diocese of Durham is actually the same as the diocese of Lindisfarne. It was moved from the west of Scotland to the east and then renamed "Durham" for its new location. Durham Cathedral is the location of the remains of St. Cuthbert (pronounced "Cubbert"), Bishop of Lindisfarne, which were moved in honor of the relocation of his diocese. -- Bob (Bob99 (talk) 22:31, 31 August 2012 (UTC))

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was that since there is no longer any move proposed I've redirected Saint Aidan and closed this discussion. I didn't follow BD2412's point about a hatnote at "Aedan of Ferns". Angus McLellan (Talk) 03:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Aidan of Lindisfarne → Saint Aidan – Saint Aidan should redirect to this article as it is clearly the common name (see below). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:40, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• this is a relatively well-known saint who is most commonly known by this name. "Saint Aidan" is almost always taken to mean Aidan of Lindisfarne (a quick Google search shows this). The only other figure listed in the disambiguation page is "Aedan of Ferns" (note: different spelling), who is commonly known as Máedóc of Ferns. Hazhk ^{Talk to me} 18:36, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Common article naming conventions might make it more preferable to have Saint Aidan as a redirect to the above article, rather than retitle the article. Hazhk ^{Talk to me} 18:40, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
• Page Saint Aidan is a disambig page. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:40, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - per (i) WP:NPOV and (ii) WP:HONORIFIC even though in this case "Saint" might pass here at a scrape (WP:HONORIFIC needs POV tightening). A NPOV source like Phyllis G. Jestice Holy People of the World: A Cross-Cultural Encyclopedia 2004 Page 27 has only "Aidan (d.651 C.E.) Christian monk,bishop,missionary.", Google Scholar / academic sources similar. I realise Wikipedia:Other stuff exists has Saint Matthew, Sri Aurobindo and Saint Peter, but those are contrary to WP:NPOV and WP:HONORIFIC too. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:55, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Apologies for the request being unclear (it appears to have been moved here). The proposal is to have Saint Aidan redirect here, rather than retitle it exactly. As you point out, naming conventions for articles generally don't have "Saint...", but for those searching for Saint Aidan, this is clearly the desired article. -- Hazhk ^{Talk to me} 14:39, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, well in that case, sure, a hatnote to Aedan of Ferns is all that's needed. You probably should ask User talk:Anthony Appleyard to close the RM and fix the redirect. Agree to turn dab into redirect Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:15, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - per In ictu oculi. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:21, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
• It seems that the actual issue to be decided is not a page move of Aidan of Lindisfarne, but either a page move of the existing Saint Aidan to Saint Aidan (disambiguation), or a deletion of that page as unneeded, either of which would be followed by redirection of Saint Aidan to Aidan of Lindisfarne. bd2412 T 00:28, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Problems with historical perspective

There are problems with the historical perspective in the Background section, especially in the statement, "... Christianity, which had been propagated throughout Britain but not Ireland by the Roman Empire, was being largely displaced by Anglo-Saxon paganism. Though it seemed a foregone conclusion that the region was returning to its indigenous religion ..."

First, Anglo-Saxon paganism was not the indigenous religion, because it had been brought there by the Anglo-Saxons, who had come from Jutland.

In addition, the ebbs and flows of Christianity in the British Isles from the Roman Empire to the time of St. Aidan are complex. Roman Britain became Christian with the rest of the Roman Empire. There is no evidence that earlier religions survived, notwithstanding the modern Romantic notion to the contrary. The final departure of the Roman legions from Britain prompted slave raiding from pagan Ireland. Paradoxically, those raids led to the capture of then-16-year-old Patrick (later Saint), who subsequently escaped, became a bishop and returned to Christianize Ireland. Meanwhile, the Christian British invited non-Christian Angles, Saxons, and Jutes to Britain to provide defense. But the barbarians decided to help themselves to most of the island, resulting in the introduction of Anglo-Saxon paganism as the dominant religion in "England." This happened while civilization in the Western Roman Empire was collapsing. As a result, Ireland was the place in Western Europe where one could find much of the old learning preserved (in monasteries). The Irish Dal Riata tribe spread from northern Ireland to the highlands of Scotland, bringing their brand of Christianity with them and establishing the monastic center on the island of Iona (which this article associates with Aidan's youth) among other monasteries. ("Scotti" was the Latin term for Irishmen.) From there, missionaries went among the Anglo-Saxons of England later to Continental Europe. These were events before the Carolingian Renaissance, but they are related to the Carolingian Renaissance. For example, Charlemagne put the Northumbrian monk Alcuin in charge of his palace school, and the well-known Carolingian miniscule form of letters was developed by Alcuin as the standard for scribes in Charlemagne's empire, based primarily on the Insular form of letters used by Irish and Anglo-Saxon monks. -- Bob (Bob99 (talk) 16:56, 5 April 2014 (UTC))

Broken Plate

Saint Aidan is often the portrayed holding a broken plate. There is no mention of this in the article. I would love to see it mentioned, with an explanation of what it meant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.40.244 (talk) 07:34, 26 July 2018 (UTC)