medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
We know about the monastic founder Romanus (d. ca. 465) chiefly from his _Vita_ (BHL 7309) in the early sixth-century _Vita patrum jurensium_ (a.k.a. _Vita sanctorum patrum jurensium Romani, Lupicini, Eugendi_). By the time of St. Gregory of Tours' _Vita patrum_ some seventy years later he was already fading into legend. Around 435 Romanus, who was then perhaps in his mid-thirties, decided to imitate the life of the Eastern desert fathers in the fastnesses of the Jura, where he established an hermitage at a place called Condidasco, later Condat but also Saint-Oyend, and now Saint-Claude in the French département du Jura. He attracted followers, notably his brother St. Lupicinus, and in time they established other monastic colonies in the region. In 444 Romanus was ordained priest by St. Hilarius of Arles at a council in Besançon.
One of Romanus' foundations was a community of women ruled over by his sister Iola (Yole) that overlooked the gorge of La Balme at today's Pratz (Jura) in Franche-Comté. In his extreme old age Romanus died there on what had been intended as a farewell visit. The originally thirteenth-century chapelle de Saint-Romain-de-Roche at Pratz marks the traditional location of his grave:
http://tinyurl.com/2zy6yc
http://www.racinescomtoises.net/IMG/jpg/11042007368.jpg
http://www.racinescomtoises.net/IMG/jpg/11042007373.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/ybcmh2c
http://www.racinescomtoises.net/IMG/jpg/11042007374.jpg
Romanus is considered the probable founder, in the middle of the fifth century, of a monastery at today's Romainmôtier-Envy (canton Vaud / Waadt) in Switzerland that was re-founded in 632 after abandonment in the sixth century (excavation has revealed remains of a fifth-century church; an explicit claim of founding by Romanus first appears in the thirteenth century). In the early tenth century it was given to the reformed Benedictines of Cluny, who operated it as a priory. In the fifteenth century, when it was in the gift of the counts of Savoy, it regained abbatial status. An illustrated, German-language page on this house is here:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kloster_Romainm%C3%B4tier
Two views of the mid-fifteenth-century reliefs of Romanus and his brother St. Lupicinus in the choir stalls of the cathédrale Saint-Pierre, Saint-Paul et Saint-André at Saint-Claude, formerly the abbey church of Saint-Oyend:
http://tinyurl.com/2dc8ln
http://tinyurl.com/2xt3wd
Best,
John Dillon
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