Pontigny The largest Cisterican abbey church in the world is that of Pontigny (Yonne), in north Burgundy. It was the Englishman St Stephen Harding who sent Hugues de Mâcon from Cîteaux to found the monastery, second of the four "first daughters of Cîteaux," in 1114. The English connection was kept up through the centuries. As Burgundy was on the route for ecclesiastical travellers between England and Rome, many English clerics stopped off at Pontigny Abbey, sometimes for extended periods of time. St Thomas Becket, patron of the English clergy, spent part of his continental exile there; and St Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had studied years before at both Oxford and Paris, died nearby in 1240. He had been staying at the abbey, then was taken sick and died just after continuing on his planned journey to Rome. His body was taken back to the abbey, and what is left of it is now in the reliquary behind the high altar. There were soon reports o