The history of Lindisfarne is entangled with the history of the early Christian church in Britain and the formalisation of Western Christianity. Initially set up as an outpost of Christendom in a pagan land, it had to adapt its customs as Christianity on the continent became more formalised and more powerful - and more integrated with power.
The famous sacking of Lindisfarne marks the official start to The Viking Age. As attacks continued, the abbey was abandoned, and as far as is known the island only became home to a religious community once again after the Norman invasion. Even then, it was reduced in size, being a sub-priory of Durham.
William I decimated the North of the country following the 1068 uprising; what political power the North had was greatly diminished, even to this day. The Normans consolidated and centralised power in the South, and their invading force depended on control from urbanised centres. Far from this politicking, the small priory at Lindisfarne seems to have been relatively undisturbed from then on, until eventually Henry VIII's ferocious reforms tore through the country and left the monastery an empty shell. Gradually it fell into ruin.
These days, a wall in the church of Saint Mary is the only remain of the pre-Norman building. Like the post-conquest abbeys which dot the country, the stonework shell of high and late medieval Lindisfarne remains as ruins.
The first abbey at Lindisfarne was wooden, but wood rots and stone does not. It was built by Bishop Aidan, invited by the new King Oswald of the new kingdom of Northumbria. Both these men were eventually canonised, tho remember this was back in early medieval Europe, when either miracles were more common or the bar for sainthood much lower.
Aidan does seem to have been a pretty sound guy tho. Christianity in the British archipelago, separated by time and sea from mainland Europe, had developed a particularly ascetic and humble form. Bede writes that Aiden converted by way of getting to know people and their concerns and speaking with them on their level. Even if there's a degree of propaganda going on here, he sounds much more chill than Saint Wilfrid (more on Wilfrid soon. He was a twat).