His name, Robert de Brunne, indicates that he came from the place then known as Brunne (Bourne, Lincolnshire), thirteen kilometres south of Sempringham Priory, the mother house of the Gilbertine Order.
This interpretation is supported by Mannyng's introduction to Handlyng Synne, in which he says that he had been at the abbey fifteen years: ten in the time of John Camelton (Hamilton) (the prior at Sempringham from c1298 to 1312), and five winters with Hamilton's successor, John Clyntone.