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