page_title: Vita Sancti Niniani
section_title: Purpose and influence
hierarchical_section_title: Vita Sancti Niniani / Purpose and influence
caption_attribution_description: English: Whithorn Priory, Whithorn, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland - nave Nederlands: Whithorn Priory, Whithorn, Dumfries and Galloway, Schotland - schip
context_page_description: The Vita Sancti Niniani or simply Vita Niniani is a Latin language Christian hagiography written in northern England in the mid-12th century. Using two earlier Anglo-Latin sources, it was written by Ailred of Rievaulx seemingly at the request of a Bishop of Galloway. It is loosely based on the career of the early British churchman Uinniau or Finnian, whose name through textual misreadings was rendered "Ninian" by high medieval English and Anglo-Norman writers, subsequently producing a distinct cult. Saint Ninian was thus an "unhistorical doppelganger" of someone else. The Vita tells "Ninian's" life-story, and relates ten miracles, six during the saint's lifetime and four posthumous.
context_section_description: It is thought that Ailred authored the work at the behest of one of the new bishops of Galloway, either Gille-Aldan or Christian, who were eager to promote their re-established bishopric to the Anglo-Norman and wider world. Ailred had a relationship with the ruler of Galloway, king Fergus of Galloway, according to Walter Daniel mediating a dispute between Fergus and his sons Gille-Brigte and Uhtred.
  Ailred's work was the first to produce the spelling "Ninian[us]". This is a scribal error taken from the earlier form Ninia, in turn a scribal error from the form Uinniau. Thus, Ailred's work helped create what was in essence a new saint, based solely on literary texts and scribal corruptions. "Ninian" was probably unknown to either the 12th century Gaelic population of Galloway or its pre-Viking Age British predecessors, which is why the names "Ninian" and "Niniau" do not exist in Celtic place-names coined before the later Middle Ages.
  Uinniau is attested as Uinniauus and Vinnianus in a 6th-century penitential used by Columbanus, Vennianus is mentioned by Columbanus himself, while Adomnán in his Vita Sancti Columbae styles the same man Finnio in the nominative case, Finnionem  and Findbarrum in the accusative case,  and Viniauo in the dative case. The name Uinniau is a hypocoristic form of Uindobarros, realised in Old Irish with an F (Finnbar and Finniau, hence Finnian). The saint's variety of names, owing to this and English scribal confusions, contributed to a fragmentation of Uinniau's cult where, in different locations he was venerated under a variety of guises in later periods.
  There is strong modern scholarly consensus that Uinniau (thus "Ninian") and Finnian of Moville are the same person. In one Vita on Finnian of Molville, the Tudwallus of the Vita Niniani is realised as Túathal Máelgarb, king of Tara. Despite Ailred's work, the cult of the original Uinniau remained strong in south-western Scotland for some time to come, an important centre being Kilwinning (from the Gaelic for "church of Uinniau") where "Saint Winnin" or "Saint Finan" was worshipped into the later Middle Ages. Nevertheless, supported by a bishopric, the cult of Saint "Ninian" took a life of its own after Ailred's work, becoming one of the most venerated cults in Scotland in the Late Middle Ages.
caption: The nave of Whithorn Cathedral, centre for the cult of "Ninian"
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