a religious order founded by Gilbert lord of Sempringham, in the county of Lincoln, about A.D. 1148. The monks observed the rule of St Augustine, and were accounted canons; the nuns observed that of St Benedict. The founder erected a kind of double monastery, in which the monks were separated from the nuns by a very high wall. St Gilbert founded thirteen monasteries, viz. four for men, and nine for men and women conjointly. At the dissolution there were about 25 houses of this order in England and Wales.