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Condat Abbey

Saint-Claude, Italy

Condat Abbey

Condat Abbey was founded in the 420s in the valley of Bienne, in the Jura mountains, in modern-day France. Condat became the capital of Haut Jura. The founders were local monks, Romanus (died c. 463), who had been ordained by St. Hilary of Arles in 444, and his younger brother Lupicinus of Lyon (Lup

icin); the easily defended isolated site they chose for the separate cells in which they and their followers would live in emulation of the Eastern manner of the Desert Fathers was on a stony headland at the confluence of the rivers Bienne and Tacon. Though the site still contained Roman ruins, it was accounted a 'desert' in the Life of the Fathers of the Jura, which contains the early saints' lives. Romanus continued founding other abbeys, such as Romainmôtier Abbey at Romainmôtier-Envy, which retains his name. Not far away at La Balme, Yole, the sister of Romanus and Lupicinus, founded her nunnery. The establishment at Condat developed into one of the pre-eminent monasteries of the Merovingian and Carolingian eras. The fourth abbot, Eugendus (Oyend, died c. 510–515), was educated in the monastery and never left it. As abbot he rebuilt it in stone and transformed its early eremitism to a...

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