SAINT-CLAUDE, DIOCESE OF. – A city and diocese, seat of a sub-prefecture in the department of the Jura in France, situated on the slopes of Mont Bayard at the confluence of the Bienne and Tacon rivers. It has the same boundaries as the department of the Jura, with an area of 4,994 sq. km. and a population of 213,533, of whom 190,000 are Catholics, distributed in 393 parishes served by 265 diocesan priests and 59 regular clergy; it has a major and minor seminary, 4 male and 16 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 345). The episcopal residence is at Lons-le-Saunier. It is a suffragan of Lyon.
The city originated from the abbey of Condat, founded by the two hermits SS. Romanus and Lupicinus ca. the 5th century; a village grew up around II. At the death of its fourth abbot, St. Eugendus, ca. 510, it took the name of St-Oyand, and later, ca. the 12th century, from the 12th abbot, Claudius, it became St-Claude, a name that passed to the city that had grown up around II. The abbey extended its properties so as to form with its lands the “Terre de la Grande Judicature de St-Claude,” which extended as far as Grandvaux (now St-Laurent-du-Jura), where in 528 the abbot of St-Oyand had founded a monastery suppressed by the Revolution (L. Maillet-Guy, *Histoire du Grandvaux*, Voiteur 1933). The abbot of St-Claude exercised temporal authority over the city, to which he granted a communal charter in 1310 and later also to Grandvaux and other dependent lands. Later it was given in commendam.
The diocese was erected by Benedict XIV on 22 Jan. 1742 with the 26 parishes surrounding the abbey, to which others were later added by division from the archdioceses of Lyon and Besançon. The abbey was then secularized, and the monks formed the Chapter of the Cathedral. The bishop bore the title of Count. By the Concordat of 1802 the territory of the diocese was annexed to that of Besançon, but the Concordat of 1817 restored the diocese, assigning it the territory of the Jura and making it a suffragan of Lyon. The abbey was destroyed by fire in 1799. The abbey church survives as the cathedral (St. Peter). Its construction dates from 1340, with a five-chapelled apse completed only in 1726; it retains Gothic style, with only the façade and square tower in classical style. The interior, 66 m. long, 26 m. wide, and 24.50 m. high, has three naves divided by octagonal piers and pointed arches. The 38 stalls of the choir were carved between 1449–60 by J. de Vitry. In March 1794 the tomb of St. Claudius was destroyed by revolutionaries. At the altar of St. Peter is a panel by H. Holbein. In the Treasury is preserved a chalice belonging to St. Francis de Sales. The patron of the diocese is St. Claudius. At Lons-le-Saunier was born St. Desiderius (d. ca. 415), bishop of Besançon; in his honor an abbey was erected in the 11th century, now the seat of the prefecture, with an attached Romanesque church divided into three naves by piers, with a crypt housing the sarcophagus of St. Desiderius. Notable for religious monuments are also Dôle and Salins.
DÔLE. – Perhaps the ancient “Crusinia” indicated in the Peutinger Table; it was the chief town of the “Pagus Amovorum” and later of the Franche-Comté, with a Chamber of Accounts, Parliament, University, and Mint, which were suppressed at the end of the 18th century. The artistic church of Notre-Dame in “flamboyant” style was built between 1509–75, with a bell tower originally 82 m. high, now reduced to 74 m. The north portal is decorated with the scene of the Blessed Virgin between two angels. The interior has three naves. The famous Collège de l’Arc, founded by the Jesuits in 1582, with a chapel of the 17th century, is now occupied by the municipal college, the library, and the archaeological, painting, and sculpture museums. Dôle is the birthplace of J. de Carondelet, archbishop of Palermo and president of the Grand Council of Flanders (1469–1545), of the Jesuit missionary Fr. J.-D. Attiret, painter to the emperor of China, and of L. Pasteur (q.v.), whose house was transformed in 1923 into the Pasteur Museum by the local “Société des Amis de la maison natale de Pasteur.”
SALINS. – Now called Salins-les-Bains. A diploma of 523 by Sigismund, king of Burgundy, attests that it was a possession of the abbey of Agaunum (St. Maurice in Valais). Notable in it are: the ancient collegiate church of St. Anatolius (patron of the city), founded in 1024 by Hugh of Salins, archbishop of Besançon, rebuilt in 1257 and after the fires of 1336 and 1469; it has three naves with a transept; the fine portal and bell tower are Romanesque; the church of St. Maurice, built in the 13th century with alterations up to the 17th, contains a wooden equestrian statue of St. Maurice in Louis XII costume. The library and museum are located in the former Jesuit college. The principal shrines of the diocese are: the church of St. Peter at Baume-les-Moines; Notre-Dame-de-Mont-Roland; Notre-Dame-Libératrice at Salins; Notre-Dame-de-l’Ermitage at Arbois; Notre-Dame-du-Chêne at Consance; Notre-Dame-de-la-Baume at Epy; Notre-Dame-Miraculeuse at Bletterans. – See pl. CI.