ROMANUS at thirty-five years of age left his relations, and spent some
time in the monastery of Ainay, (called in Latin Athanacense,) at Lyons,
at the great church at the conflux of the Saone and Rhone, which the
faithful had built over the ashes of the famous martyrs of that city;
for their bodies being burnt by the pagans, their ashes were thrown into
the Rhone, but a great part of them was gathered by the Christians, and
deposited in this place. Romanus, a short time after, took with him the
institutions and conferences of Cassian, and retired into the forests of
mount Iura, between France and Switzerland, and fixed his abode at a
place called Condate, at the conflux of the rivers Bienne and Aliere,
where he found a spot of ground fit for culture, and some trees which
furnished him with a kind of wild fruit. Here he spent his time in
praying, reading, and laboring for his subsistence. Lupicinus, his
brother, came to him some time after in company with others, who were
followed by several more, drawn by the fame of the virtue and miracles
of these two saints. Here they built the monastery of Condate, and,
their numbers increasing, that of Leuconne, two miles distant to the
north, and, on a rock, a nunnery called La Beaume, (now St. Remain de la
Roche,) which no men were allowed ever to enter, and where St. Romanus
chose his burial-place. The brothers governed the monks jointly and in
great harmony, though Lupicinus was more inclined to severity of the
two. He usually resided at Leuconne with one hundred and fifty monks.
The brethren at Condate, when they were enriched with many lands,
changed their diet, which was only bread made of barley and bran, and
pulse dressed often without salt or oil, and brought to table
wheat-bread, fish, and variety of dishes. Lupicinus being informed
hereof by Romanus, came to Condate on the sixth day after this
innovation, and corrected the abuse. The abstinence which he prescribed
his monks was milder than that practised by the oriental monks, and by
those of Lerins, partly because the Gauls were naturally great eaters,
and partly because they were employed in very hard manual labor. But
they never touched fowls or any flesh-meat, and only were allowed milk
and eggs in time of sickness. Lupicinus, for his own part, used no other
bed than a chair or a hard board; never touched wine, and would scarce
ever suffer a drop either of oil or milk to be poured on his pulse. In
summer his subsistence for many years was only hard bread moistened in
cold water, so that he could eat it with a spoon. His tunic was made of
various skins of beasts sewn together, with a cowl: he used wooden
shoes, and wore no stockings unless when he was obliged to go out of the
monastery. St. Romanus died about the year 460, and is mentioned in the
Roman Martyrology on the 28th of February. St. Lupicinus survived him
almost twenty years, and is honored in the Roman Martyrology on the 21st
of March. He was succeeded in the abbacy of Condate by Minaucius, who,
in 480, chose St. Eugendus his coadjutor. See the lives of the two
brothers, SS. Romanus and Lupicinus, and that of St. Eugendus or Oyend,
compile a by a monk of Condate of the same age; St. Gregory of Tours,
{in} {485} de Vitis Patr. c. 1. Mabill. Annal. Ben. l. 1, ad an. 510, t.
1, p. 23. Tillemont, t. 16, p. 142. Bulteau, l. 1.