Page 19 - The Portal magazine - February 2025
P. 19

THE P    RTAL                            February 2025                                    Page 19

        Praying with Saint Gilbert




        Dr Simon Cotton



            HE FENS, covering the southeast quarter of Lincolnshire, are scoured by the bracing winds straight
        Tfrom the North Sea. Not at first sight the most hospitable of areas, yet it gave birth to the only monastic
        order which originated in England, the Gilbertines. The parish church standing at Sempringham today is all
        that remains of the medieval buildings here; it appears to slightly postdate the foundation of the monastic
        community. Once a late Norman church of nave, central tower and chancel, with associated north aisle and
        transept, it lost the chancel and transept in 1788, and was given a new chancel in 1868. Its tower was rebuilt
        in the late Middle Ages.

          Born just after 1080, its founder, Gilbert, was the son  much of his time in travel, visiting the communities
        of the lord of the manor of Sempringham; Jocelin was a  regularly, seems to have been a humble yet practical
        Norman knight (which accounts for Gilbert’s Norman  character, who  turned  his hand  to  many  roles,
        name). Gilbert was born deformed, went to France to  including that of copyist, carpenter and builder; he
        study and was ordained to minor orders. He launched  founded orphanages and leper hospitals. Yet Gilbert
        a school for both boys and girls, and appointed a vicar  did not bow to the wind, as he was a firm supporter of
        to provide services at Sempringham, while living in  Thomas Becket in his argument with King Henry II,
        the vicarage and setting an example of devotion and  spending six years in exile in France, and his creation
        moderation. He was ordained priest at around the age  of  double  monasteries,  with  most  having  parallel
        of forty, by which time he had inherited the estate as  communities of monks and nuns, was exceptional.
        well as becoming its parish priest, an early example of a
        ‘squarson’. By this time a group of seven young women   The order continued to flourish after his death, and
        had come together to form a small community, so  eventually  there  were  25  Gilbertine  monasteries  in
        Gilbert built them a house next to the church where  England, mainly in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, and
        they could live under a Benedictine rule.             one in Scotland. All the houses were dissolved under
                                                              King Henry VIII, and today you look in vain for traces
          The community grew; both lay sisters and brothers  of the large monastic house that Gilbert built some 400
        were added to work the land and grow the food. In  yards south of Sempringham church.
        1147 Gilbert tried,
        unsuccessfully, to get
        the Cistercians to run
        his order; instead,
        Pope Eugenius III
        made Gilbert the
        Master of the order
        of       Gilbertines.
        The order mainly
        comprised nuns, with
        canons regular added
        to   be    chaplains.
        Gilbert died in 1189
        at an advanced age,
        said to have been
        106, by which time
        there were around
        150   members     of
        the  order in  13
        monasteries. He was
        canonised in 1202 by
        Pope Innocent III.

          Gilbert, who  spent
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