Cîteaux Abbey (French: Abbaye de Cîteaux) is a Roman Catholic abbey located in Saint-Nicolas-lès-Cîteaux, south of Dijon, France.
Cîteaux Abbey | Cîteaux | Saint-Nicolas-lès-Cîteaux | Albéric of Cîteaux |
The Cistercian order takes its name from this mother house of Cîteaux, earlier Cisteaux, near Nuits-Saint-Georges.
The monks acquired a plot of marsh land just south of Dijon called Cîteaux (Latin: "Cistercium"), started to build a new monastery there which became Citeaux Abbey, the mother Abbey of the newly founded Cistercian order.
Meanwhile, the monastery at Cîteaux, under the direction of Albéric, and especially Stephen Harding, became the cornerstone for the new Cistercian Order, which grew to greater fame in the 12th century under Bernard of Clairvaux.
Afterwards he left on a long voyage or pilgrimage; he visited Malbork, Prague, Holy Land and Jerusalem, and finally went to France, where he met Pope Urban V in Avignon and finally in 1366 entered a Cistercian monastery in Cîteaux (the Cîteaux Abbey); however after a year he moved to the Order of Saint Benedict monastery in Dijon.