Henry Murdac - Early Life

Early Life

Murdac was a native of Yorkshire. He was friendly with Archbishop Thurstan of York, who secured his promotion in the cathedral chapter of York Minster, however Murdac resigned soon afterwards when Bernard of Clairvaux invited him to become a Cistercian monk at Clairvaux Abbey. He was a friend and companion there of the future Pope Eugene III. He was later appointed the first abbot of Vauclair Abbey in the diocese of Laon and in 1144 returned to Yorkshire to assume the abbacy at Fountains. Henry was a strict disciplinarian and a magnificent administrator, enforcing his rules by example, in living a life of great austerity and constantly wearing sackcloth next to his skin.

Murdac was also at the forefront of opposition to the appointment of William FitzHerbert to the see of York, by King Stephen of England. William, who was the king’s nephew, was accused by some of simony and unchaste living; in a letter to Pope Innocent II, Bernard maintained that fitzHerbert was ‘rotten from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.’ FitzHerbert was first suspended by the pope and then in 1147 formally deposed by the Council of Rheims at the instigation of Pope Eugene III, like Murdac, a former monk of Clairvaux.

Read more about this topic:  Henry Murdac

Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:

    ... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)

    Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...
    Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)

    The welfare, the happiness, the energy and spirit of the men and women who do the daily work ... is the underlying necessity of all prosperity.... There can be nothing wholesome unless their life is wholesome; there can be no contentment unless they are contented.
    Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)