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.
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