THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
tic prejudices. In the same "enlightened" spirit he wrote other works to prepare the way for a rational religion. Returning to Zurich, his great learning and vmdoubted talent for investigation secured him an appointment there as teacher of natural law and ethics. He lived with the simplicity of Diogenes, and managed to save something every month from his meager income " for the worthy poor." Paul Tschackbrt.
Bibliography: F. SchlichtegroU, Nekrolog auf das Jahr 1793. i. 283-298, Gotha, 1794; ADB, iv. 502-504.
CORVEY: Celebrated Benedictine abbey near the town of Hoxter, at the junction of the Scheldt and the Weser (45 m. s.s.w. of Hanover). It was founded by a colony from the abbey of Corbie near Amiens, at the impulse of Abbot Adalhard and his brother Wala (see Adalhard and Wala). Several monks were sent about 815 with the young Saxon Theodrad to found a monastery at Hethis in the Sollinger-Wald ; but the soil proved unfruitful, and the colonists were barely able to extract a living from it. Adalhard asked Louis the Pious for permission to transfer the monks to some more fertile spot, and the permanent home of the abbey was chosen. By the autumn of 822 the buildings were completed and the church was consecrated by Bishop Badurad of Paderborn under the invocation of St. Stephen, the abbey receiving the name of " New Corbie " (Nova Corheja). Many rich gifts and privileges were bestowed upon it by the emperor and nobles, and it soon grew to considerable strength. Adalhard died Jan. 2, 826, and was succeeded by Warin, who ruled the community for thirty years. In the thousand years following his death sixty more abbots succeeded one another. The abbey reached its highest point of prosperity under the Saxon emperors, in whose time the convent school, founded soon after the abbey and conducted for a while by Ansgar (q.v.), attained a wide-spread fame. Literary activity distinguished the monks, among whom the best-known author is Widukind (q.v.). The collection of a library was soon begun; among its treasures was the only known manuscript (11th cent.) of the first six books of the " Annals " of Tacitus. [This is called the First Medicean MS. of Tacitus bocause brought to Rome to Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici (afterward Leo X.) in 1509. It is now Ln the Vatican Library.] Corvey had been a royal abbey from its foundation; in 1065 Adalbert of Bremen obtained a grant of it from Henry IV., but the monks, supported by Otto of Nordheim, succeeded in vindicating their independence. The administration of Wibald of Stable (q.v.) was its last brilliant period. After his time it began to decline; discipline fell off, and internal dissensions arose. It managed, however, to sustain itself througli the Reformation, only to suffer its hardest blows in the Thirty Years' War, when its library and archives were destroyed, its buildings damaged, and its property and revenues much diminished. In 1792 Pius VI. changed the abbey into a bishopric, with a jurisdiction of five square miles and 9,000 souls. Through the settlement of 1803, the territory passed to the house of Nassau-Orange, and later to the kingdom of West-
phalia, finally coming under the jurisdiction of Prussia. The bishopric on its spiritual side was suppressed in 1821. (A. Hauck.)
Bibliogkaphy: The Annales Corbejenses are in MGH, Script., iii. 1-18. Consult: P. Wigand, Geschichte der Abtey Corvey, Hoxter, 1819; idem, Traditiones Corbeienses, Leipsic, 1843; W. Wattenbach, DGQ, 5th ed., ii. 472; Neander, Christian Church, iii. 273-276, et passim; Hauck, KD, vol. ii., passim.
CORVINUS (RABE, "raven," not RAEBENER), ANTONIUS: Protestant Reformer; b. at Warburg (20 m. n.w. of Cassel) Feb. 27, 1501; d. at Hanover Apr. 5, 1553. He was educated in the Cistercian monasteries of Riddagshausen in Brunswick, and Loccum in Hanover, at the University of Leipsic, and probably also at Wittenberg. He early embraced the Reformation; in 1526 he is found at Marburg; in 1528 he went to Goslar to establish the Reformation there, and worked successfully till 1531, when persecution drove him to Witzenhausen in Hesse. There and elsewhere in the country and neighboring lands he played a prominent part and enjoyed the friendship of the landgrave. With the latter's permission he preached in Hanover and Gottingen, in Minden and Pattensen. In 1546 the duke of Gottingen-Kalenberg became a Romanist, and when Corvinus vigorously opposed the Augsburg Interim of 1548 he was thrown into prison at Kalenberg (Nov. 2, 1549) and not released till Oct. 21, 1552. He possessed considerable learning, some poetical ability, but greater organizing talents, and by devotion, patience, and self-sacrifice he won a place among the Reformers of the second rank.
Bibliography: G. TJhlhorn, Antonius Corvinus, Hanover, 1901; P. Tschsucyiert, Antonius Corvinus Lehen und Schriften, ib. 1900; his Briefwechsel, ed. P. Tschackert, 1900; and his Bericht vom Kolloquium zu Regensburg 1541, ed. P. Tschackert, in Archiv filr Reformationsgeschichte, 1903; G. Geisenhof, Bibliotheca Corviniana, Brunswick, 1900; J. Kosthn, Martin Luther, ii. 299, 311-312, Berlin, 1903.
CORWIN, EDWARD TANJORE: Reformed (Dutch); b. in New York City July 12, 1834. He was graduated at the College of the City of New York, then the Free Academy (B.A., 1853), and the New Brunswick Theological Seminary (1856), where he was a graduate student 1856-57 and instructor in Hebrew and Old Testament exegesis 1883-84. He held pastorates at Paramus, N. J. (1857-63), and Hillsborough (MUlstone), N. J. (1863-88). He was then rector of Herzog Hall, New Brunswick, N. J., 1888-95, and gave instruction at various times in the Theological Seminary. After a pastorate at Greenport, N. Y., 1895-97, he was in Holland in 1897-98 as the agent of the General Synod to collect documents relating to the Amsterdam Correspondence, which passed between the classis of Amsterdam and the colonial Dutch Reformed churches of New Netherlands and the Province of New York. These papers were brought out vmder his editorship by. the State of New York {Ecclesiastical Records of the State of New York, 6 vols., Albany, 1901-06). He was president of the General Synod of his denomination in 1891, and is the official historiographer of the Reformed Church in America. In theology he is a conservative. Among his nu-