Corbie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Corbie is Scots for "Raven" or "Crow" but this article is about the small town in Picardy
| Corbie |
|
| Région | Picardy |
| Département | Somme, (80), |
| Its people are called | Corbéens |
| Population 1999 | 6,315 inhabitants |
| Postal code | 80800 |
| Area | 16.5 km² |
| Population Density | 389 people/km² |
Corbie is a commune of the Somme département, in northern France.
Contents |
[edit] Location
The small town is situated 15 km up river from Amiens, in the département Somme, main town of the canton of Corbie. It lies in the valley of the River Somme, at the confluence of the River Ancre. The town is bisected by the Canal de la Somme.
This Satellite photograph shows it in its context. The town is to the left and the fenny Somme valley winds down to it from the right. The chalk of the Upper Cretaceous plateau shows pale in the fields. The River Ancre flows down from the north-east. The A29 is shown under construction snaking across the chalk in the southern part of the picture. The fainter, straight line just to its north is the road, N29. It passes through Villers-Bretonneux, the village just south of Corbie.
[edit] Twin towns
[edit] History
- 657 or 660 : Foundation of the abbey by the queen regent Bathilde
- 774 : Desiderius, last king of the Lombards was exiled to Corbie abbey.
- 780 : creation of Carolingian, new calligraphy which was to become the minuscule of later printing. See Merovingian script.
- 850 ca. : The period of the Pseudo-Isidore forgeries concerning the use of documents from Corbie Abbey.
- 850 : Charles, Archbishop of Mayence was confined in Corbie Abbey.
- 868 ca. : Ratramnus, schollar monk, died.
- 1234 : Floris IV, Count of Holland died at a tournament in Corbie.
- 1475 : the town was taken by Louis XI
- 1636 : the Spanish took the town on 15 August and were ousted in November by Richelieu and Louis XIII of France after a siege of three months.
- 1918 : Corbie was on the margin of the battlefield of Villers-Bretonneux at which the First Battle of the Somme (1918) of the Spring Offensive, came to a climax.
[edit] Corbie Abbey
The abbey was founded in about 660, around a corpus of monks from the Abbey of Luxeuil, in the Franche-Comté. This about twenty years before the Northumbrian monasteries of Wearmouth (674) and Jarrow (681). Its scriptorium came to be one of the centres of work of manuscript illumination when the art was still fairly new in western Europe. At this early, Merovingian date, the Corbie work was innovative in that it showed pictures of people; for example of Saint Jerome.
The contents of its library are known from catalogues of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In 1638, Cardinal Richelieu ordered the transfer of the library's books to the library at Saint-Germain-des-Prés. That was dispersed at the end of the eighteenth century.
[edit] Notable people
- Saint Adalhard, a German cousin of Charlemagne was Abbot of Corbie. In 822 he founded the abbey of Corvey (Corbeia nova : new Corbie) on the territory of Höxter (Westphalia).
- Sainte-Colette (born at Corbie in 1381): reformer of the Franciscan Order
- Eugène Lefebvre, aviation pioneer, born at Corbie 4 October 1878. He was the first pilot to be killed at the controls of his aeroplane, 7 September 1909
[edit] Notable buildings
- Abbey of St. Peter (Saint Pierre)
- Town Hall
- Church of la Neuville; at the north-west end of the town
[edit] References
- Nordenfalk, C. Book Illumination Early Middle Ages (1995) ISBN 2-605-00299-3 It has no index but sets Corbie in the contemporary context. See pp.52,54,60.
- Voronova, T. & Sterligov, A. Western European Illuminated Manuscripts 8th to 16th centuries (2003) ISBN 0-86288-584-1
