Page 19 - The Portal magazine - February 2025

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