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89. The chief peculiarity of this Order was that monks and nuns dwelt under the same roof, but their apartments were entered by separate doors from without, and had no communication from within. They attended the Priory Church together, but never mixed among each other except on the administration of the Sacrament. The monks followed the rule of Saint Austin; the nuns the Cistercian rule, with Saint Benedict's emendations, to which some special statutes were added by the founder. The habit was, for monks, a black cassock, white cloak, and hood lined with lambskin; for nuns, a white habit, black mantle, and black hood lined with white fur. There was a Master over the entire Order, who lived at Sempringham, the mother Abbey also a Prior and a Prioress over each community. The Prior of Sempringham was a Baron of Parliament. The site of the Abbey, three miles south-east from Folkingham, Lincolnshire, may still be traced by its moated area. The Abbey Church of Saint Andrew alone now remains entire; it is Norman, with an Early English tower, and a fine Norman north door. But few houses of the Gilbertine Order existed in England, and those were mainly in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. The principal ones--after Sempringham, which was the chief--were Chicksand, Bedfordshire; Cambridge; Fordham, near Newmarket; Hitchin, Hertfordshire; Lincoln, Alvingham, Bolington, Cateley, Haverholme, Ormesby, Newstead (not the Abbey, which was Augustinian), Cotton, Sexley, Stikeswold, Sixhill, Lincolnshire; Marmound and Shuldham, Norfolk; Clattercott, Oxfordshire; Marlborough, Wiltshire; Malton, Sempringham Minor, Watton, and Wilberfosse, Yorkshire. The Gilbertine Order "for some centuries maintained its sanctity and credit; afterwards it departed greatly from both." VII. FICTITIOUS PERSONS. In Part One, these are Cicely's daughters, Alice and Vivien, and her damsels, Margaret and Fina; Meliora, the Queen's sub-damsel; Hilda la Vileyne, and her relatives. Of all others, the name and position at least are historical facts. The fictitious persons in Part Two are more numerous, being all the household of the Countess of March (except John Inge the Castellan): and Nichola, damsel of the Countess Agnes. The three Despenser nuns, Mother Alianora, and the Sisters Annora and Margaret, and Lady Joan de Greystoke, are the only characters in Part Three which are not fictitious. A difference in the diction will be noticed between Par
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