GILBERTINES, a religious order so called from St Gilbert of Sempringham, in the county of Lincoln, who founded the same about the year 1148. The monks of this order observed the rule of St Augustin, and were accounted canons; the nuns observed that of St Benedict. The founder of this order erected a double monastery, or rather two different ones, contiguous to each other, the one for men, the other for women, but separated by a very high wall. St Gilbert himself founded thirteen monasteries of this order, viz. four for men alone, and nine for men and women together, which had in them seven hundred brethren and fifteen hundred sisters. At the dissolution there were about twenty-five houses of this order in England and Wales.