Divinitas and Deus that led to the condemnation of Gilbert’s doctrine.
De sex principiis and commentary on the De Trinitate in Migne, Patrologia Latina, lxiv. 1255 and clxxxviii. 1257; see also Abbé Berthaud, Gilbert de la Porrée (Poitiers, 1892); B. Hauréau, De la philosophie scolastique, pp. 294-318; R. Schmid’s article “Gilbert Porretanus” in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk. f. protest. Theol. (vol. 6, 1899); Prantl, Geschichte d. Logik, ii. 215; Bach, Dogmengeschichte, ii. 133; article Scholasticism.
GILBERT OF SEMPRINGHAM, ST, founder of the Gilbertines, the only religious order of English origin, was born at Sempringham in Lincolnshire, c. 1083–1089. He was educated in France, and ordained in 1123, being presented by his father to the living of Sempringham. About 1135 he established there a convent for nuns; and to perform the heavy work and cultivate the fields he formed a number of labourers into a society of lay brothers attached to the convent. Similar establishments were founded elsewhere, and in 1147 Gilbert tried to get them incorporated in the Cistercian order. Failing in this, he proceeded to form communities of priests and clerics to perform the spiritual ministrations needed by the nuns. The women lived according to the Benedictine rule as interpreted by the Cistercians; the men according to the rule of St Augustine, and were canons regular. The special constitutions of the order were largely taken from those of the Premonstratensian canons and of the Cistercians. Like Fontevrault (q.v.) it was a double order, the communities of men and women living side by side; but, though the property all belonged to the nuns, the superior of the canons was the head of the whole establishment, and the general superior was a canon, called “Master of Sempringham.” The general chapter was a mixed assembly composed of two canons and two nuns from each house; the nuns had to travel to the chapter in closed carts. The office was celebrated together in the church, a high stone screen separating the two choirs of canons and nuns. The order received papal approbation in 1148. By Gilbert’s death (1189) there were nine double monasteries and four of canons only, containing about 700 canons and 1000 nuns in all. At the dissolution there were some 25 monasteries, whereof 4 ranked among the greater monasteries (see list in F. A. Gasquet’s English Monastic Life). The order never spread beyond England. The habit of the Gilbertines was black, with a white cloak.
See Bollandists’ Acta Sanctorum (4th of Feb.); William Dugdale, Monasticon (1846); Helyot, Hist. des ordres religieux (1714); ii. c. 29. The best modern account is St Gilbert of Sempringham, and the Gilbertines, by Rose Graham (1901). The art. in Dictionary of National Biography gives abundant information on St Gilbert, but is unsatisfactory on the order, as it might easily convey the impression that the canons and nuns lived together, whereas they were most carefully separated; and altogether undue prominence is given to a single scandal. Miss Graham declares that the reputation of the order was good until the end. (E. C. B.)
GILBERT FOLIOT (d. 1187), bishop of Hereford, and of London, is first mentioned as a monk of Cluny, whence he was called in 1136 to plead the cause of the empress Matilda against Stephen at the Roman court. Shortly afterwards he became prior of Cluny; then prior of Abbéville, a house dependent upon Cluny. In 1139 he was elected abbot of Gloucester. The appointment was confirmed by Stephen, and from the ecclesiastical point of view was unexceptionable. But the new abbot proved himself a valuable ally of the empress, and her ablest controversialist. Gilbert’s reputation grew rapidly. He was respected at Rome; and he acted as the representative of the primate, Theobald, in the supervision of the Welsh church. In 1148, on being nominated by the pope to the see of Hereford, Gilbert with characteristic wariness sought confirmation both from Henry of Anjou and from Stephen. But he was an Angevin at heart, and after 1154 was treated by Henry II. with every mark of consideration. He was Becket’s rival for the primacy, and the only bishop who protested against the king’s choice. Becket, with rare forbearance, endeavoured to win his friendship by procuring for him the see of London (1163). But Gilbert evaded the customary profession of obedience to the primate, and apparently aspired to make his see independent of Canterbury. On the questions raised by the Constitutions of Clarendon he sided with the king, whose confessor he had now become. He urged Becket to yield, and, when this advice was rejected, encouraged his fellow-bishops to repudiate the authority of the archbishop. In the years of controversy which followed Becket’s flight the king depended much upon the bishop’s skill as a disputant and diplomatist. Gilbert was twice excommunicated by Becket, but both on these and on other occasions he showed great dexterity in detaching the pope from the cause of the exile. To him it was chiefly due that Henry avoided an open conflict with Rome of the kind which John afterwards provoked. Gilbert was one of the bishops whose excommunication in 1170 provoked the king’s knights to murder Becket; but he cannot be reproached with any share in the crime. His later years were uneventful, though he enjoyed great influence with the king and among his fellow bishops. Scholarly, dignified, ascetic in his private life, devoted to the service of the Church, he was nevertheless more respected than loved. His nature was cold; he made few friends; and the taint of a calculating ambition runs through his whole career. He died in the spring of 1187.
See Gilbert’s Letters, ed. J. A. Giles (Oxford, 1845); Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, ed. J. C. Robertson (Rolls series, 1875–1885); and Miss K. Norgate’s England under the Angevin Kings (1887). (H. W. C. D.)
GILBERT (Kingsmill) ISLANDS, an extensive archipelago
belonging to Great Britain in the mid-western Pacific Ocean,
lying N. and S. of the equator, and between 170° and 180° E.
There are sixteen islands, all coral reefs or atolls, extending in
crescent form over about five degrees of latitude. The principal
is Taputenea or Drummond Island. The soil, mostly of coral
sand, is productive of little else than the coco-nut palm, and the
chief source of food supply is the sea. The population of these
islands presents a remarkable phenomenon; in spite of adverse
conditions of environment and complete barbarism it is exceedingly
dense, in strong contradistinction to that of many other
more favoured islands. The land area of the group is only 166 m.,
yet the population is about 30,000. The Gilbert islanders are
a dark and coarse type of the Polynesian race, and show signs
of much crossing. They are tall and stout, with an average height
of 5 ft. 8 in., and are of a vigorous, energetic temperament.
They are nearly always naked, but wear a conical hat of pandanus
leaf. In war they have an armour of plaited coco-nut fibres.
They are fierce fighters, their chief weapon being a sword armed
with sharks’ teeth. Their canoes are well made of coco-nut wood
boards sewn neatly together and fastened on frames. British
and American missionary work has been prosecuted with some
success. The large population led to the introduction of natives
from these islands into Hawaii as labourers in 1878–1884, but
they were not found satisfactory. The islands were discovered
by John Byron in 1765 (one of them bearing his name); Captains
Gilbert and Marshall visited them in 1788; and they were
annexed by Great Britain in 1892.
GILBEY, SIR WALTER, 1st Bart. (1831– ), English
wine-merchant, was born at Bishop Stortford, Hertfordshire,
in 1831. His father, the owner and frequently the driver of the
daily coach between Bishop Stortford and London, died when
he was eleven years old, and young Gilbey was shortly afterwards
placed in the office of an estate agent at Tring, subsequently
obtaining a clerkship in a firm of parliamentary agents in London.
On the outbreak of the Crimean War, Walter Gilbey and his
younger brother, Alfred, volunteered for civilian service at the
front, and were employed at a convalescent hospital on the
Dardanelles. Returning to London on the declaration of peace,
Walter and Alfred Gilbey, on the advice of their eldest brother,
Henry Gilbey, a wholesale wine-merchant, started in the retail
wine and spirit trade. The heavy duty then levied by the
British government on French, Portuguese and Spanish wines
was prohibitive of a sale among the English middle classes, and
especially lower middle classes, whose usual alcoholic beverage
was accordingly beer. Henry Gilbey was of opinion that these
classes would gladly drink wine if they could get it at a moderate
price, and by his advice Walter and Alfred determined to push
the sales of colonial, and particularly of Cape, wines, on which
