FINTAN (FINDAN), saint. – Benedictine, born in Leinster (Ireland) at the beginning of the ninth century, died at Rheinau in 878. Captured in a raid by the Normans and taken to the Orkneys as a slave, he managed to escape and seek refuge under the protection of a bishop of Scotland.
After a pilgrimage to Rome, he became a Benedictine at the abbey of Farfa, from where he moved to the monastery of Rheinau in the Black Forest. He spent the last twenty-two years of his life in complete solitude. His relics, preserved at Rheinau, were burned in 1520, with the exception of his head. Feast day: 15 November.
BIBL.: J. Mabillon, Acta SS. Ordinis S. Benedicti, IV, 1, Paris 1726, pp. 356–60; MGH, Scriptores, XV (1888), pp. 503–506. Celestino Testore