| Vita Sancti Niniani | |
|---|---|
| "The Life of Saint Ninian" | |
| Author(s) | Ailred of Rievaulx |
| Patron | Perhaps a Bishop of Galloway |
| Language | medieval Latin |
| Date | composed mid-1100s |
| Authenticity | authentic |
| Principal manuscript(s) | 1) British Library Cotton Tiberius D iii 2) Bodleian Library Laud Miscellaneous 668 |
| First printed edition | John Pinkerton, 1789 |
| Genre | prose hagiography |
| Subject | Saint Ninian |
| Setting | Anglo-Saxon Whithorn and neighbourhood |
| Period covered | unclear, early middle ages |
| Sources | 1) Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 2) Liber de Vita et Miraculis (lost) |
The Vita Sancti Niniani ("Life of Saint Ninian") or simply Vita Niniani ("Life of Ninian") 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.[1] The Vita tells "Ninian's" life-story, and relates ten miracles, six during the saint's lifetime and four posthumous.