This map shows you where Holy Island (Lindisfarne) is.

You may have been surprised by the picture of Saint Aidan at the top of this page. Wasn't St. Aidan a monk? Yes but not a monk as we imagine one, with long black and white robes and a shaved patch on the crown of his head. That is what a Benedictine monk looked like, and in Church here you can even see a banner which dresses St. Aidan as a Fransciscan friar. But he lived before Benedictinism came to England, and long before St. Francis.

St. Aidan was a Celtic monk. He was probably born in Ireland about 600 A.D. He lived for many years on the Island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, where St. Columba, an Irish prince, had founded a great Christian Monastery.

At this time, Northumbria was an AngloSaxon kingdom. The Anglo-Saxons were pagans, but under the great King Edwin, who became a Christian, a missionary campaign led by Paulinus and based at York reached many people. However when Edwin was killed in battle by the pagan Penda of Mercia, Christianity was driven underground until Oswald became king.

Oswald had been educated on Iona as a boy, and had become a Christian there. Before the battle in which he gained the crown he set up a rough wooden cross on the battle field, to show that he was fighting for the Christian faith as well as for a kingdom. So naturally, as king, he turned to Iona to supply him with a missionary bishop to preach to his people.

The first missionary sent from Iona said the Northumbrians were "uncivilised people of obstinate and barbarous temperament" and returned home disgusted. The Ionan monks then chose the wise and gentle Aidan to make the second attempt. He was consecrated bishop and sent to Northumbria in 634.

St Aidan chose Lindisfarne as his monastic centre. Here his monks could have some seclusion (at high tide) but could easily walk across the sands (at low tide) to the King's house at Bamburgh and to the mainland.

None of the buildings from the Celtic monastery remain today. They were probably small, round, wooden huts with thatched roofs. Churches within the monastery would also have been small.

St. Aidan's monastery may have been on the Heugh, or in the place where the stone ruins of the later Benedictine priory may still be seen.

Here in their simple buildings the monks lived, prayed, worshipped and studied. From here they went out to meet the "obstinate and barbarous" people.

The monks of Lindisfarne were mainly missionaries. For the sake of the work they trained themselves to live austerely; they ate sparingly, drank water, slept little and wore rough clothes of wool and leather. St. Aidan used any money they were given to ransom slaves or to help the very poor.

He preferred to travel on foot, so that he could meet and talk to the people. When the king gave him a horse he gave it away to a beggar. When the king protested he said, "Is' this foal of a mare more to you than this child of God?".

The mission had rapid success. The king helped St. Aidan in the early days by translating his message into Anglo-Saxon for the crowd.

The missionaries were greatly respected as men who "lived as they taught".

St. Aidan realised from the start the importance of a "native priesthood". Starting a school on Lindisfarne was one of the most important things he did. Boys were taught to read and write, and the Latin they needed for the Gospels and Psalms. They were trained as priests and missionaries. Many of them became famous, and much of England was converted by them.

St. Aidan also started the monastic life for women in Northumbria. Under his guidance St. Hild became the first great Abbess, ruling houses at Hartlepool and Whittly. So women had the chance to give themselves to God in a life of prayer and service. But they did not go out as travelling missionaries in the same way as the men.

Loved and respected by all, St. Aidan died at Bamburgh in 651, after 17 years as the first bishop of Lindisfarne.

The great Anglo-Saxon historian Bede pays tribute to him as follows:

"He ' cultivated peace and love, purity and humility; he was above anger and greed, and despised pride and conceit; he set himself to keep and to teach the laws of God, and he was diligent in study and prayer. He used his priestly authority to check the proud and powerful; he tenderly comforted the sick; he relieved and protected the poor. He took pains never to neglect anything that he had learned from the writings of the apostles prophets, and he set himself to carry them out with all his powers. "