The three reformed congregations of Benedictines, Carthusians, Cluniacs, and Cistercians, all made a point of more rigid observance of the dietary rule. The Carthusians adhered to the absolute and perpetual refusal of every kind of flesh-meat right up to the dissolution; for them it was never lawful even in times of the gravest illness. The Cistercians, whose abbeys were so frequent throughout England, were in the first instance rigid in prohibiting flesh save in the infirmary. Their strictness in this respect in England for some time after their establishment is well illustrated by the following fact. In June 1246, the new conventual buildings of the great Hampshire monastery of Beaulieu were dedicated by the Bishop of Winchester at a function which was attended by the King and Queen and by a large assembly of the magnates of the realm. At the next visitation both prior and cellarer were deposed from their offices because, even on a supreme occasion of this kind, they had broken the rule by serving secular visitors with flesh in the refectory. Early in the fifteenth century power to dispense from this rule was granted for a time to Cistercian superiors; but this worked badly, and in 1485 those who desired it (even if well in health) might have meat three days in the week--namely, Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, provided they took it in a separate chamber built for the purpose, usually termed the _misericorde_, and not in the refectory or fratry. By some it was pleaded that the greater coldness of England, as compared with the rest of Christendom, demanded a better diet; but this notion did not commend itself to Gilbert of Sempringham, the devout and yet very practical English founder of the essentially English order that bore his name. In the guest-houses of the Gilbertine foundations the canons were prohibited from ever eating or drinking with their guests, unless it was an Archbishop or Bishop; and as it was lawful to give obedience to a Bishop, if such a guest invited a canon to eat or drink, he might do so once or twice to avoid discourtesy. But even in the guest-houses no flesh was on any account to be served save for an Archbishop, Bishop, or Papal Legate, or in the case of real sickness. Supposing a Bishop required it, Gilbert laid down that none of his canons or lay-brothers were to prepare the meat, but the prelate’s own attendants, “for,” he adds, “in our houses nothing of the nature of flesh or blood ought ever to be eaten save by the sick, nor within the walls of the granges save by the sick and hired labourers.”