The
Gilbertine Order of
Canons RegularCanons regular are members of certain bodies of Canons living in community under the Augustinian Rule , and sharing their property in common as a type of vow of poverty...
was founded around 1130 by
St. GilbertSaint Gilbert of Sempringham became the only Englishman to found a convent, mainly because the Cistercian monks at Citeaux declined his request to assist him in helping a group of women living with lay brothers and sisters, in 1148...
in
SempringhamSempringham is a hamlet in Lincolnshire, England that is located north of Bourne, on the Lincolnshire fen edge. Sempringham is now a very small hamlet consisting of a church, a house and a well, giving little clue to the history embodied within its parish boundary. Most of its houses are a...
,
LincolnshireLincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire, and the East Riding of Yorkshire. It also borders Northamptonshire for just 19 metres, England's shortest county boundary...
, where he was a parish priest. It was the only completely
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
religious orderA religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practice. The order is composed of initiates and, in some...
, and died out with the
Dissolution of the MonasteriesThe Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, denotes the administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, nunneries and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their income, disposed...
. Brian Golding has written a useful early history of the Gilbertines, cited below.
St. Gilbert originally wanted to found a men's order, but found that to be impossible. Instead, he accepted seven women, whom he had taught in the village school and founded a women's order based on the Cistercian Rule in 1131.
Eventually he added lay sisters to do daily chores, so that the
nunA Nun, or also known as a Sister in some cases, is a woman who has taken special vows committing her to a religious life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
s could attend to their duties, and lay brothers to do the hardest work in the fields.
The
Gilbertine Order of
Canons RegularCanons regular are members of certain bodies of Canons living in community under the Augustinian Rule , and sharing their property in common as a type of vow of poverty...
was founded around 1130 by
St. GilbertSaint Gilbert of Sempringham became the only Englishman to found a convent, mainly because the Cistercian monks at Citeaux declined his request to assist him in helping a group of women living with lay brothers and sisters, in 1148...
in
SempringhamSempringham is a hamlet in Lincolnshire, England that is located north of Bourne, on the Lincolnshire fen edge. Sempringham is now a very small hamlet consisting of a church, a house and a well, giving little clue to the history embodied within its parish boundary. Most of its houses are a...
,
LincolnshireLincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire, and the East Riding of Yorkshire. It also borders Northamptonshire for just 19 metres, England's shortest county boundary...
, where he was a parish priest. It was the only completely
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
religious orderA religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practice. The order is composed of initiates and, in some...
, and died out with the
Dissolution of the MonasteriesThe Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, denotes the administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, nunneries and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their income, disposed...
. Brian Golding has written a useful early history of the Gilbertines, cited below.
Founding
St. Gilbert originally wanted to found a men's order, but found that to be impossible. Instead, he accepted seven women, whom he had taught in the village school and founded a women's order based on the Cistercian Rule in 1131.
Eventually he added lay sisters to do daily chores, so that the
nunA Nun, or also known as a Sister in some cases, is a woman who has taken special vows committing her to a religious life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
s could attend to their duties, and lay brothers to do the hardest work in the fields. In 1139 the small order opened its first new foundation on the island of
HaverholmHaverholme Priory was a monastery situated 4 miles north east of Sleaford, Lincolnshire, near Anwick.-Foundation:Gilbert of Sempringham, founded the only English order of the Cistercian monks, who were given Haverholme Priory, by Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, located between Anwick and Ewerby in a...
, a gift from Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln. Over the years more and more foundations were established, and Gilbert soon became overwhelmed. In 1147 he left
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
for the
ContinentContinental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands and, at times, peninsulas. Notably, in British and Irish English usage, the term means Europe excluding the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, the Channel...
to seek assistance, and the Cistercian Order was approached by Gilbert at its major house in Citeaux to take on the running of Gilbert's foundations. The Cistercians refused, apparently because they were unable to cope with the double houses of men and women, but Pope Eugenius III, himself a Cistercian, intervened to ask the abbot Saint Bernard of Clairvaux to assist Gilbert in drawing up Institutes for a new Order. Pope Eugenius then appointed Gilbert as the first Master of the Order of Sempringham or Gilbertines.
Habit
The Gilbertines wore a habit with a black Soutane, and with white
CowlThe cowl is a hood worn by members of religious orders. It also refers to a long, hooded cloak, with wide sleeves, worn by some Catholic and Orthodox monks when participating in the liturgy. Developed in the Middle Ages, they became the formal garment for those in monastic life...
and
ScapularThe term scapular as used today refers to two specific, yet related, Christian Sacramentals, namely the monastic and devotional scapulars, although both forms may simply be referred to as "scapular"....
, so that when viewed from God's perspective, they would appear as a white cross on a black background.
The Crosier Canons, who are still extant, wear the opposite : black over white.
Layout
Each Gilbertine priory had one church, divided unevenly by a wall. The nuns had the larger part, and the canons the smaller. The latter would join the nuns only to give
massIn physics, mass commonly refers to any of three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent: inertial mass, active gravitational mass and passive gravitational mass...
. From the church, the nunnery was normally to the north, and the canons' dwellings to the south.
Lay Brothers
One source of perpetual pain for Gilbert were the lay brothers. These came purposely from low
peasantA peasant is an agricultural worker who subsists by working a small plot of ground. The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district A peasant is an agricultural worker who subsists...
families, because they spent their days working hard on the farms and in the fields. The problem was that they did not take well to discipline and needed a firm hand to guide them. There seem to have been many instances of insubordination and scandal from them, and of these two stand out:
The Nun of Watton
In the mid-twelfth century, a girl was brought to the Priory of Watton as a child, but had no real religious vocation. This
Nun of WattonThe Nun of Watton was the alleged central protagonist of a drama at a Gilbertine convent in Yorkshire, recorded by Ailred of Rievaulx in De Sanctimoniali de Wattun. In the story, the nun in question was admitted to the holy life as a toddler in the twelfth century...
became pregnant by a lay brother, who fled, but was brought back for punishment. The other nuns then made the girl castrate him, and then stuck the removed parts down her throat. They then chained her up, where she mysteriously lost the baby. It is said that
Henry MurdacHenry Murdac was abbot of Fountains Abbey and Archbishop of York ,-Early life:He was a native of Yorkshire, but descended from a wealthy family from Compton Murdac , in Warwickshire...
, the
Archbishop of YorkArchbishop of York is a high-ranking cleric in the Church of England, second only to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and metropolitan of the Province of York, which covers the northern portion of England as well as the Isle of Man...
and the man who had brought her to the priory, appeared with two heavenly women who cleansed the girl's body of her sin and her pregnancy. Her chains then fell off. St Aelred of Rievaulx was called in to investigate and declared it to be a miracle. However, he was also intensely critical of the Nun's fellow sisters and Gilbert of Sempringham himself for their lack of pastoral care.
The Sempringham Revolt
Towards the end of Gilbert's life, when he was around 90 years old, some of the lay brothers in Sempringham rose up against him, complaining of too much work and too little food. The rebels, led by two skilled craftsmen, received money from both religious and secular backers and took the case to Rome.
Pope Alexander IIIPope Alexander III , born Rolando of Siena, was Pope from 1159 to 1181. He is noted in history for laying the foundation stone for the Notre Dame de Paris.-Church career:...
ruled in Gilbert's favour, but the living conditions of the lay brothers were improved thereafter.
The Middle Ages
The Gilbertine order was always popular. They were the final homes of the last members of the
WelshWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, bordered by England to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It is also an elective region of the European Union...
royal family, young daughters, after the rest had been defeated and killed in the 1280s. King after king gave the order liberal charters, yet it always had financial problems. By the end of the 15th century the order was greatly impoverished, and
Henry VIHenry VI was King of England 1422–1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and King of France from 1422 to 1453. Until 1437, his realms were governed by regents. Contemporaneously, he was described as a peaceful and pious man, not suited for the harsh nature of the struggles facing him...
exempted all of its houses from paying taxes or any other sort of payment. He could not and did not force his successors to do the same.
Dissolution
By the time of the Dissolution, there were 26 houses of Gilbertines, but only four were ranked as "greater houses" with annual incomes of over £200. These gave in without a fight and surrendered "of their own free will" in 1538. Each nun and canon then received a pension for the rest of their days. The last prior of all,
Robert HolgateRobert Holgate was Bishop of Llandaff and then Archbishop of York . He recognised Henry VIII as leader of the Church of England.-External links:*Archbishop Holgate's School...
,
Bishop of LlandaffThe Bishop of Llandaff is the Ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Llandaff.-Area of authority:The diocese covers most of the County of Glamorgan. The Bishop's seat is located in the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul , in the village of Llandaff, just north-west of the City of...
, was promoted to Archbishop of York in 1545. The Gilbertines were the one truly English order, so the Dissolution marked its permanent end.
Legacy
The Gilbertine legacy remains quite small; only 15 extant manuscripts are associated with the order, attached to five of the Gilbertine houses. Four additional works ascribed to Gilbertine members, but not surviving in Gilbertine copies, include the
Vita of Gilbert of Sempringham, the Gilbertine Rule, the so-called 'Sempringham Continuation' to
Le Livere de Reis Engleterre, and the works of
Robert MannyngRobert Manning or Robert de Brunne , a Gilbertine monk, provides a surprising amount of information about himself in his two known works, Handlyng Synne and a Chronicle. In these two works, Mannyng tells of his residencies at the Gilbertine houses of Sempringham and Sixhills, and also at the...
.
The remains of a Gilbertine monastery,
Malton PrioryMalton Priory, Old Malton, North Yorkshire, England, is near to the town of Malton. A surviving fragment of a rare example of a monastery of the Gilbertine Order, founded by Eustace fitzJohn in about 1150....
, have been incorporated into the parish church at
MaltonMalton is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The town is the location of the offices of Ryedale District Council and has a population of around 4,000 people....
in North Yorkshire. The original monastery was established around 1150, and, though subject to considerable abuse, the surviving fragment remains impressive.
Oblates of St. Gilbert
In 1983, following celebrations of the nine hundredth anniversary of Gilbert's birth, a number of laypeople in the East Midlands undertook to sustain the memory and work of Gilbert and the Gilbertine Order by establishing a secular Order. The Oblates of St. Gilbert exist to promote the Gilbertine contemplative spirit and to foster interest in the study of Gilbert and his Order. They are supported by the Cistercian monastery of
Mount St. Bernard AbbeyMount St Bernard's Abbey is a Cistercian monastery of the Strict Observance near Whitwick in Leicestershire, England, founded in 1835. Its present Superior is Dom Joseph Delargy....
in Leicestershire, England.
External links