SAINT-CLAUDE, DIOCESE OF. - City and diocese, seat of a subprefecture of the department of Jura in France, situated on the slopes of Mount Bayard, at the confluence of the Bienne and Tacon rivers. It has the same boundaries as the department of Jura, with an area of 4,994 sq km and a population of 213,533 inhabitants, of whom 190,000 are Catholics, distributed among 393 parishes, served by 265 diocesan priests and 59 regulars; it has a major and a minor seminary, 4 male religious communities and 16 female ones (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 St. Romanus and St. Lupicinus around the 5th century; near it a village gradually grew up; at the death of its fourth abbot Eugendus, around 510, it took the name of St-Oyand first, and then around the 12th century, from its 12th abbot, Claudius, that of St-C., which also passed to the town that had grown up around it. The abbey expanded its properties so as to form with its holdings the "Terre de la Grande Judicature de St-C.", and it extended as far as Grandvaux (today St-Laurent-du-Jura) where in 528 the abbot of St-Oyand had erected the monastery suppressed by the revolution (L. Maillet-Guy, Histoire du Grandvaux, Voiteur 1933). The abbot of St-C. had temporal authority over the city, to which he granted the communal charter in 1310 and later also to Grandvaux and other dependent lands. Later it was given in commendam.
The diocese was created by Benedict XIV on 22 January 1742 with the 26 parishes that surrounded the abbey, to which others were later added by dismemberment from the archdioceses of Lyon and Besançon. The abbey was then secularized and the monks formed the Cathedral Chapter. The bishop held the title of count. With the Concordat of 1802 the territory of the diocese was annexed to that of Besançon, but the Concordat of 1817 re-established the diocese, assigning it the territory of Jura and making it a suffragan of Lyon. The abbey was destroyed by a fire in 1799. The abbey church, which became the cathedral (St. Peter), survives. Its construction dates back to 1340 with an apse of five chapels, completed only in 1726; it retains the Gothic style, and only the facade and the square tower are in the classical style. The interior, 66 m long, 26 m wide, 24.50 m high, has three naves divided by octagonal pillars with pointed arches. The 38 choir stalls were carved between 1449-60 by J. de Vitry. In March 1794 the tomb of St. Claudius was destroyed by the revolutionaries. At the altar of St. Peter is a panel by H. Holbein. In the Treasury a chalice that belonged to St. Francis de Sales is preserved. The patron of the diocese is St. Claudius. At Lons-le-Saunier was born St. Desiderius (d. around 415), bishop of Besançon; in his honor an abbey was erected in the 11th century, today the seat of the prefecture, with an adjoining Romanesque church divided into three naves by pillars, with a crypt where the sarcophagus of St. Desiderius is preserved. Dôle and Salins are also notable for their religious monuments.
Dôle. - It is perhaps the ancient "Crusinia" indicated in the Peutinger Table; it was the capital of the "Pagus Amovorum" and then of 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 the "flamboyant" style was erected between 1509-75 with a bell tower, originally 82 m high, now reduced to 74. The north portal is decorated with the scene of the B. Virgin between two angels. The interior has three naves. The famous Collège de l'Arc, founded by the Jesuits in 1582, with a 17th-century chapel, is today 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 Father J.-D. Attiret, painter to the emperor of China, and of L. Pasteur (v.), whose house was transformed in 1923 into the Musée Pasteurien by the local "Société des Amis de la maison natale de Pasteur".
Salins. - Today called Salins-les-Bains. A diploma of 523 from 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 beautiful portal and the bell tower are Romanesque; the church of St. Maurice, erected in the 13th century with alterations down to the 17th century, contains an equestrian statue in wood of St. Maurice in the costume of Louis XII. The Library and the Museum are located in the old Jesuit College. The principal sanctuaries 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-Balme at Epy; Notre-Dame-Miraculeuse at Bletterans. - See plate Cl.
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Enrico Josi