Gilbertine Order
Overview
Canons Regular
Canons Regular are members of certain bodies of Canons living in community under the Augustinian Rule , and sharing their property in common...
was founded around 1130 by Saint Gilbert
Gilbert of Sempringham
Saint Gilbert of Sempringham became the only Englishman to found a conventual order, mainly because the abbot of Cîteaux declined his request to assist him in helping a group of women living with lay brothers and sisters, in 1148...
in Sempringham
Sempringham
Sempringham 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...
, Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
, where Gilbert was the parish priest. It was the only completely English
England
England 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, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
religious order
Religious order
A 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 came to an end in the 16th century at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
.
Brian Golding has written an early history of the Gilbertines, cited below.
St Gilbert of Sempringham originally wished to found a men's order, but found that to be impracticable.
