User:Dadewebster/St-Claudius

Saint Claudius
In the 12th century, the body of Abbey Claude, who had passed away 600 years before, was exhumated intact. The cult of the thaumaturgic abbey developed far away from Jura; the very pious King of France Louis XI was his most famous supporter. The abbey, which adopted the Benedictine rule, and the town started to be known as Saint-Claude. The name was definitively adopted in the 18th century, whereas the abbey fell into decline and was secularized in 1742. The only remain of Saint-Claude religious past is the former abbey church, today the cathedral Sts. Pierre, Paul and André, built in the 14th-18th centuries. In the cathedral, the St. Claude chapel keeps a shrine with the wax replica of the body of the saint; the treasure of the cathedral includes the authentic forearm of the saint, that escaped desecration in 1794, whereas his left little finger is kept in a separate reliquary. When the revolutionaries burned the body of the saint, his forearm and little finger were stolen and hidden by François Joseph Jacquet, whose house was the only one to escape the 1799 blaze. The expiatory chapel of the White Friars was built in 1869 on the site of Jacquet's house. The Bishopric of Saint-Claude still exists but its seat was transferred to Lons-le-Saunier. The church is also famous for an 16th century altarpiece offerred by Bishop of Geneva Pierre de Baume and the stalls made in walnut by Jehan de Vitry in 1447-1450.

Saint Claude is said to have been born in the castle of Bracon, near Salins, from the Gallo-Roman family of Claudia, which already produced a saint bishop in the VIth century. To avoid confusion, St. Claudius is often called Claude the Thaumaturge. Up to the age of 20, Claude served as a border guard; in 627 he was appointed canon by St. Donat, Archbishop of Besançon. He became a famous professor and ascete, having only a frugal meal per day. Twelve years later, he retired in the monastery of Saint-Oyand, then as famous and wealthy as the monastery of Luxeuil. Aged 34, he was elected leader of the community by the monks. Claude visited in 650 King of Neustria and Burgundy Clovis II, who was under the good influence of his pious wife Bathilde, and obtained from him an annuity, which allowed the development ot the monastery. Claude imposed the Benedictine rule and was compared to the Egyptian monks Antoine and Pacôme the Great. When St. Gervais died in 685, Claude reluctantly accepted the Bishopric of Besançon but he kept an eye on the monastery. Seven years later, he noticed that the discipline had become very lax, he abandoned the Bishopric and came back to the monastery, then aged 86. After his death on 6 June 699, his body was perfumed but not embalmed. His tomb was forgotten but his fame remained. The famous Archbishop of Mayence and Abbot of Fulda Raban Maur listed him in his Martyrology, written c. 850. As said above, the veneration of Claude started in the XIIth century when his body was exhumated, even if a document states that his body was already kept in the abbey of Saint-Oyend in the IXth century.