Gilbert of Sempringham

St. Gilbert with two nuns (19th century)

Gilbert of Sempringham (* between 1083 and 1089 ; † February 4, 1189 ) was an English founder.

His father Jocelin was a wealthy Norman knight who owned land in Lincolnshire . Due to a deformity, he was not suitable for military service and was therefore sent to Paris to study. When he returned to Lincoln , he became secretary to Robert Bloet , the Bishop of Lincoln, whose successor Alexander ordained him a priest in 1123. But he rejected the archdeaconate offered.

After the death of his father, he returned to Sempringham in 1131 and founded a monastery on his father's property there for poor girls who lived in strict enclosure according to the Benedictine rule, and in connection with this a monastery according to the rule of the Augustinian canons with special additions from the Cistercian rule . From this the order of the Gilbertines developed after the general chapter of the Cistercians in Citeaux in 1147 had refused to accept the rapidly growing community of Gilbert. It is the only order founded by an Englishman. It has not found any distribution outside of England. The double order of Gilbertiner was in 1148 by Eugene III. confirmed and abolished in the monastery tower under Henry VIII in 1536 .

In 1202 Pope Innocent III spoke . Gilbert of Sempringham holy. His Catholic and Anglican feast day is February 4th, but information is also available for February 11th .

literature

• RBDobson: Sempringham, monastery . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 7, LexMA-Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-7608-8907-7 , Sp. 1742 f. treats Gilbert, the Gilbertines and the monastery .
• Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Gilbert of Sempringham. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 246.
• John Dobrée: Life of St. Gilbert, Prior of Sempringham . In: The Lives of the English Saints IV, ibid. 1901, 3-155
• Brian Golding: Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertine Order c.1130-c.1300 . Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995
• Anne Müller: Entcharismatisation as a reason for validity? Gilbert of Sempringham and the early Gilbertine Order . In: Giancarlo Andenna , Mirko Breitenstein , Gert Melville (eds.): Charisma and religious communities in the Middle Ages , Münster 2005, pp. 151–172

Footnotes

1. ^ Marie-Luise Ehrenschwendtner: Gilbertiner . In: Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG), 4th ed., Vol. 3, Sp. 928–929.

Web links

RU Butler:  St. Gilbert of Sempringham . In: Catholic Encyclopedia , Volume 6, Robert Appleton Company, New York 1909 ( feast day February 11 ).