Pontigny

Pontigny, a village of the French department of Yonne, 18 miles S.E. of Auxerre, with a famous Cistercian monastery, dating from the 12th century. Three English archbishops retired hither—Becket in 1164, Cardinal Langton in 1207, and St Edmund of Canterbury in 1240, the last being buried here. The monastery was devastated by the Huguenots in 1567, and finally destroyed at the Revolution; but the church (mainly 1150–70) is the most perfect Cistercian church in existence. To the shrine of St Edmund (18th century) in this church came in 1874 a pilgrimage of English Roman Catholics.