Letter CCCXXI. To Henry Murdach, First Abbot of Vauclair, Then of Fountains, and Finally Archbishop of York

(A.D. iisB.)

He orders Henry not to refuse his election to the Abbacy of Fountains.¹²

To his dearest brother and co-Abbot HENRY, Brother BERNARD, called Abbot of Clairvaux, sends greeting and the assurance of his prayers.

I enjoin you, my brother Henry, not to refuse the election, of our brethren at Fountains, with the advice of the venerable Abbot of Rievaulx, if it shall have fallen upon you; but to yield to it in charity. I give this precept, I assure you, unwillingly, knowing that by your absence I shall be deprived of a great consolation. But I do not dare to oppose myself to a unanimous choice, for I believe that God speaks by the conclusions which a number of Religious come to with one consent; as I have read in the Gospel,. Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them (S. Matt, xviii. 20). Take courage, therefore, my dear brother; receive their promises of obedience, and watch over them, as the shepherd of their souls. Do not fear on account of the house which you have already undertaken to rule. For I, please God, will provide for it a faithful administrator; for it is very near to me. Nor do you make any difficulty on •account of the Bishop; l depend upon me to arrange the matter with him.

Footnotes

1. Formerly No. 382; the former No. 321 is now 345. ↩

2. This Henry was English by birth; it is to him that Letter 106 is addressed. At first he was a monk at Clairvaux; thence he was sent, in 1135, with twelve other monks, to found the Abbey of Vauclair in the Diocese of Laon. He pre sided over this until 1 138, when he was translated to the Abbacy of Fountains,, and accepted it at the advice and bidding of S. Bernard, as these Letters show. He became Archbishop of York in 1 147, and died in 1153, on the i4th October,, according to the necrology of Vauclair. ↩