Georges Goyau in the Catholic Encyclopedia wrote that “The Life of St. Claudius, Abbot of Condat, has been the subject of much controversy.”[2] Anglican Henry Wace claimed that "on this saint the inventors of legends have compiled a vast farrago of improbabilities.

[3] According to a long tradition from Salins-les-Bains, Claudius was born in the castle of Bracon near Salins, of a Gallo-Roman family named Claudia.

[4] Until the age of twenty, he served as a border guard, but in 627 he was appointed as a canon by Donatus (Donat), bishop of Besançon.

[4] On the death of Saint Gervase, the bishop of Besançon, the clergy of that city elected Claudius as their archbishop in 685.

[3] In the 9th century, Rabanus Maurus mentions Claudius in his Martyrologium as an intercessor, with the words VII idus junii, depositio beati Claudii, episcopi.

[3][4] His body, said to have been in an incorruptible state,[4] and which had been hidden during the Arab invasions, was rediscovered in 1160, and visited in 1172 by Peter II of Tarentaise.