Saint Romanus of Condat ( – ) is a saint of the fifth century. At the age of thirty five he decided to live as a

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...

in the area of Condat. His younger brother Lupicinus followed him there. They became leaders of a community of monks that included

Saint Eugendus Saint Eugendus (also Augendus; french: Oyand, Oyan; 449 – January 1, 510) was the fourth abbot of Condat Abbey, at Saint-Claude, Jura. He was born at Izernore. Life He was instructed in reading and writing by his father, who had become a pries ...

. Romanus and Lupicinus founded several monasteries. These included

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 Arl ...

, which was the nucleus of the later town of

Saint-Claude, Jura Saint-Claude () is a commune and a sous-préfecture of the Jura department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France. It lies on the river Bienne. History The town was originally named ''Saint-Oyand'' after Saint Eugendus. Howe ...

), Lauconne (later Saint-Lupicin, as Lupicinus was buried there), La Balme (Beaume) (later Saint-Romain-de-Roche), where Romanus was buried, and

Romainmôtier Romainmôtier is a village and former municipality in the district of Orbe in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. In 1970 the municipality was merged with the neighboring municipality Envy to form a new and larger municipality Romainmôtier-Envy ...

(''Romanum monasterium''), now in the

canton of Vaud Vaud ( ; french: (Canton de) Vaud, ; german: (Kanton) Waadt, or ), more formally the canton of Vaud, is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of ten districts and its capital city is Lausanne. Its coat of arms b ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. Romanus was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform va ...

a priest by St. Hilary of Arles in 444.

Sources on Romanus

Two lives of him are in existence: one by

Gregory of Tours Gregory of Tours (30 November 538 – 17 November 594 AD) was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of the area that had been previously referred to as Gaul by the Romans. He was born Georgius Florenti ...

in the ''Liber vitae patrum'' (

Mon. Germ. Hist. The ''Monumenta Germaniae Historica'' (''MGH'') is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published primary sources, both chronicle and Archives, archival, for the study of Northwestern and Central European history from the end of the Rom ...

: Script. Merov., I, 663), and an anonymous '' Vita Sanctorum Romani, Lupicini, Eugendi'' bid., III, 131 sqq.; cf. Benoît, "Histoire de St-Claude", I (Paris, 1890); Besson, "Recherches sur les origines des évêchés de Genève, Lausanne, et Sion" (Fribourg, 1906), 210 sqq.

External links

Romanus of Condat
5th-century Christian clergy French hermits 5th-century Christian saints Gallo-Roman saints 463 deaths {{Switzerland-bio-stub