1149. This group was established at the Sainte-Geneviève Abbey, which in its turn became very numerous and, reformed as the Gallican Congregation, in the 16th century, by a holy man called Charles Faure; and had, at the outbreak of the Revolution, no fewer than one hundred abbeys and monasteries in France. The Gilbertines were founded by St. Gilbert of Sempringham. It was the only religious order of distinctly English origin. Having completed his studies in England and in France, he returned to the diocese of Lincoln, where he became a parish priest. At first he established a small community of enclosed, contemplative nuns, assisted by lay sisters. To this were added lay brothers to work the land, and later canons to serve the community and assist with administration. Gilbert tried to associate his order with the Cistercians, who refused to accept them and advised him to produce his own Rule. The monasteries were largely double houses of male and female religious (with strictly separate quarters), with some houses for men alone. A great friend of Ss. Aelred and Bernard, Gilbert composed his Rule drawing on Cistercian, Premonstratensian and Benedictine models, but used the Rule of St. Augustine for his male religious. The Gilbertine Order spread especially in the North of England, and at the time of the general Dissolution of the Monasteries, it had twenty houses and one hundred and fifty-one religious. Unusually it was the prioress of the monastery who was the actual superior of the house, with a Master General elected by the male and female superiors in General Chapter. Extinct congregations also include the Order of Saint Rufus, founded in 1039, and once flourishing in Dauphiné; that of Aroasia (Diocese of Arras, in France), founded in 1097; Marbach (1100); of the Holy Redeemer of Bologna, also called the Renana (1136), now united to the Lateran Congregation; of the Holy Spirit in Sassia (1198); of St. George in Alga, at Venice (1404); of Our Saviour in Lorraine, reformed in 1628 by St. Peter Fourier. Canonesses regular As well as canons regular, there are also canonesses regular, the claim of an origin in the Apostolic Age being common to both. Communities of canonesses regular developed from the groups of women who took the name and the Rule of life laid down for the various congregations of canons regular. As with regard to origin and antiquity the same is to