A religious order; thus called from St. Gilbert, of Sempringham, in the county of Lincoln, who founded the same about the year 1148; the monks of which observed the rule of St. Augustine, and were accounted canons, and the nuns 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 parted 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 700 brethren, and 1500 sisters. At the dissolution, there were about twenty-five houses of this order in England and Wales.