Condat Abbey

The founders were local monks, Romanus (died c. 463),[2] who had been ordained by St. Hilary of Arles in 444, and his younger brother Lupicinus of Lyon (Lupicin); 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[3] of the rivers Bienne and Tacon.

[5] Oyend increased the independence of the monastery and transformed it into an ecclesiastical principality that ruled all Upper Jura; nevertheless, the diplomas apparently from Charlemagne and confirming territorial rights[6] were demonstrated by René Poupardin to be forgeries, apparently of the eleventh century.

[11] Before he became a monk of Condat, Simon of Crépy, of the Carolingian royal house, was raised by Matilda, wife of William the Norman, was made count of Valois and Vexin, and fought Philip I of France.

Condat Abbey was a member of the Holy Roman Empire, held directly from the Emperor and independent of the Count of Burgundy.

Its lethargic and luxurious style of life was subjected to a vigorous programme of reform by abbot Étienne de Fauquier (elected 1445), under a bull of Pope Nicholas V (1447); the regenerated abbey received confirmation of its exemption from the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Lyon from Calixtus III (1455), and the great carved Late Gothic choirstalls testify to the financial strength and confidence of the mid-fifteenth century abbey.

[13] However, under a series of abbots in commendam the abbey devolved into an aristocratic chapter, to join which a novice had to demonstrate four degrees of nobility.