Corvey
Corvey [1]
Abbey of, a celebrated monastery near Hoxter, in Germany. The Benedictines of Corbie (q.v.), in Picardy (France), sent out in 816 a colony to found a convent in the forests of Sollingen, but the monks removed in 822 to a more healthy region, where they established Corbeja nova, or Corvey. Louis the Pious endowed them with numerous possessions and privileges, and his example was followed by many other princes and laymen, so that Corvey soon became the richest of all the German convents. The abbot obtained a Voice in the diets, and was amenable only to the papal authority. The school of the convent was highly flourishing during the 9th and 10th centuries. Among the many celebrated men who proceeded from Corvey was Ansgar (q.v.), the apostle of the Scandinavians, with his eminent associates and pupils, St. Adalbert, archbishop of Magdeburg, and many archbishops of Bremen and Hamburg. At the period of its greatest prosperity the convent had twenty-four theological professors, and its library was celebrated for its large number of classical manuscripts. Thus the first five books of Tacitus, which were commonly regarded as lost, were found in Corvey. Unfortunately, this exquisite library was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War. In 1794 Corvey was erected into a bishopric, but secularized in 1804, and joined in 1807 to Westphalia, and in 1815 to Prussia. See Wigand, Gesch. d. A bte; Korvey (Hoxter, 1819); and Korveische Geschichtsquellen (Lpz. 1841); Schumann, Heber das Chrosicon Corvejense (Gott. 1839); Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchen-Lex. 2:898.
