2023) increased the abbey's reputation. Before he became a monk of Condat, Simon of Crépy, of the Carolingian royal house, was raised by Matilda, wife of William the Norman, was made count of Valois and Vexin, and fought Philip I of France. Condat Abbey was a member of the Holy Roman Empire, held directly from the Emperor and independent of the Count of Burgundy. By the late twelfth century it possessed thirty-four priories, 108 churches and twenty-seven chapels. Its famed collection of relics of the local saints drew pilgrims. In the twelfth century the body of the twelfth abbot, Claudius of Besançon (Claude, died 699), was exhumed intact and proclaimed a miraculous relic with curative powers. The cultus of Saint Claude that soon developed, extended to the pious king, Louis XI. Decline The village began to take on its modern name of Saint-Claude in the seventeenth century, while the abbey declined. Its lethargic and luxurious style of life was subjected to a vigorous programme of reform by abbot Étienne de Fauquier (elected 1445), under a bull of Pope Nicholas V (1447); the regenerated abbey received confirmation of its exemption from the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Lyon from Calixtus III (1455), and the great carved Late Gothic choirstalls testify to the financial strength and confidence of the mid-fifteenth century abbey. However, under a series of abbots in commendam the abbey devolved into an aristocratic chapter, to join which a novice had to demonstrate four degrees of nobility. Three famous later abbots in commendam were Pierre de la Baume (abbot 1510–44), Don Juan of Austria the Younger, natural son of Philip IV of Spain (abbot 1645–79) and César Cardinal d'Estrées (1681–1714). Its lands were finally secularised in 1742, and the bishopric of Saint-Claude established to care for its former parishes. Today all that remains of the abbey of Condat is its former abbey church, rebuilt in the fourteenth century and often further remodelled, as Saint-Claude Cathedral. The most comprehensive history of the abbey is Dom P. Benoît, Histoire de l'abbaye et de la terre de Saint-Claude (Montreuil-sur-Mer) 2 vols. 1890–92 (re-edited 1990). List of Abbotts Roman, abbot from 430 to 473. Lupicien, abbot from 473 to 493. Minause, provost or dean of Condat, abbot from 493 to 496. Saint Oyand, abbot from 496 to 510. Antidiole, abbot from 510 to 533. Olympus, abbot from 533 to 566. Sapient, abbot from 566