GILBERT OF SEMPRINGHAM, ST., founder of the Gil bertines, the only religious order of English origin, was born at Sempringham in Lincolnshire, c. 1083-89. He was educated in France, and ordained in 1123, being presented by his father to the living of Sempringham. About 1135 he established there a con vent for nuns ; and to perform the heavy work and cultivate the fields he formed a number of labourers into a society of lay brothers attached to the convent. Similar establishments were founded elsewhere, and in 1147 Gilbert tried to get them incor porated in the Cistercian order. Failing in this, he formed com munities of priests and clerics to perform the spiritual ministra tions needed by the nuns. The women lived according to the Bene dictine rule as interpreted by the Cistercians; the men according to the rule of St. Augustine, and were canons regular. The special constitutions of the order were largely taken from those of the Premonstratensian canons and of the Cistercians. Like Fonte vrault (q.v.) it was a double order, both communities living side by side; but, though the property belonged to the nuns, the supe rior of the canons was the head of the whole establishment, and the general superior was a canon, called "Master of Sempringham." The general chapter was a mixed assembly composed of two canons and two nuns from each house. The order received papal approbation in 1148. By Gilbert's death (1189) there were nine double monasteries and four of canons only, containing about 700 canons and ',coo nuns in all. At the dissolution there were some 25 monasteries. The order never spread beyond England. See Bollandists' Acta Sanctorum (Feb. 4) ; Dugdale, Monasticon (1846) ; Helyot, Hist. des ordres religieux (1714), ii. c. 29 ; R. Graham, St. Gilbert of Sempringham, and the Gilbertines (19o1), and F. A. Gasquet, English Monastic Life (19o4) •