02Knights Templar - Julian Emperor

CELTIC AND EARLY ENGLISH SAINTS
They were also required to forgo meat and lived on a minimal
diet of vegetables and water supplemented by bread. It is
thought that he died in 598 AD and his feast day is 1 March.
When depicted in religious art, St David is commonly shown
dressed in his bishop’s vestments, standing upon a raised
mound with a dove on his shoulder.Although he is best known
for his links with Wales, he is also a patron saint of poets and
vegetarians. Because St David is said to have lived on a strict
diet of bread, salt, water and leeks, this may be the origin of
the vegetable’s status as a national symbol of theWelsh.
St Aidan
Today St Aidan is best known as the first bishop and then the
abbot of the important early Christian centre of Lindisfarne
during the seventh century AD. However, little detail of his
life before this time is known other than that he was born in
Ireland. St Aidan was one of the monks on the island of Iona
but came to England in 635 AD at the request of King Oswald
of Northumbria. Oswald had spent a period of exile on Iona
after the kingdom of Northumbria had been taken by forces
from Mercia. During his time on Iona, Oswald had become a
Christian and, when he returned to England, he granted St
Aidan the small island of Lindisfarne as a base for converting
the local population. The area of what is now north-east
England and south-east Scotland was known as Bernicia and
was to be the focus of St Aidan’s evangelical work. He gained
a reputation for renouncing worldly goods, living an austere
life of poverty and devoting himself to prayer and charitable
acts. StAidan died on 31August 651AD at Bamburgh. He was
buried on Lindisfarne in the church cemetery but the bones
of the saint were moved into the church itself at a later date.
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