legate. Cardinal John of Crema, who had arrived in England and was acting in an autocratic manner. Again travelling to Rome, William gained another victory, and was himself appointed papal legate (legatus natus) in England and Scotland, a precedent of considerable importance in the history of the English Church. The archbishop had sworn to Henry I. that he would support the claim of his daughter Matilda to the English crown, but nevertheless he crowned Stephen in December 1135. He died at Canterbury on the 21st of November 1136. William built the keep of Rochester Castle, and finished the building of the cathedral at Canterbury, which was dedicated with great pomp in May 1130.
See W. F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (1860–1884); and W. R. W. Stephens, History of the English Church (1901).
CORBEIL, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement
in the department of Seine-et-Oise, at the confluence of
the Essonne with the Seine, 21 m. S. by E. of Paris on the
Orléans railway to Nevers. Pop. (1906) 9756. A bridge across
the Seine unites the main part of the town on the left bank with
a suburb on the other side; handsome boulevards lead to the
village of Essonnes (pop. 7255), about a mile to the south-west.
St Spire, the only survivor of the formerly numerous churches
of Corbeil, dates from the 12th to the 15th centuries. Behind
the church there is a Gothic gateway. A monument has been
erected to the brothers Galignani, publishers of Paris, who gave
a hospital and orphanage to the town. Corbeil is the seat of a
sub-prefect, and has tribunals of first instance and commerce
and a chamber of commerce. It has important flour-mills,
tallow-works, printing-works, large paper-works at Essonnes,
and carries on boat and carriage-building, and the manufacture
of plaster. The Decauville engineering works are in the vicinity.
There is trade in grain and flour.
From the 10th to the 12th century Corbeil was the chief town of a powerful countship, but it was united to the crown by Louis VI.; it continued for a long time to be an important military post in connexion with the commissariat of Paris. In 1258 St Louis concluded a treaty here with James I. of Aragon. Of the numerous sieges to which it has been exposed the most important were those by the Huguenots in 1562, and by Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma, in 1590.
CORBEL (Lat. corbellus, a diminutive of corvus, a raven, on
account of the beak-like appearance; Ital. mensola, Fr. corbeau,
cul-de-lampe, Ger. Kragstein), the name in medieval architecture
for a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent
weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same
way was called a tassel or a bragger. Thus the carved ornaments
from which the vaulting shafts spring at Lincoln are corbels.
Norman corbels are generally plain. In the Early English period
they are sometimes elaborately carved, as at Lincoln above
cited, and sometimes more simply so, as at Stone. They sometimes
end with a point apparently growing into the wall, or
forming a knot, as at Winchester, and often are supported by
angels and other figures. In the later periods the foliage or
ornaments resemble those in the capitals. The corbels carrying
the arches of the corbel tables in Italy and France were often
elaborately moulded, and sometimes in two or three courses
projecting over one another; those carrying the machicolations
of English and French castles had four courses. The corbels
carrying balconies in Italy and France were sometimes of great
size and richly carved, and some of the finest examples of the
Italian Cinquecento style are found in them. Throughout
England, in half-timber work, wood corbels abound, carrying
window-sills or oriels in wood, which also are often carved. A “corbel table” is a projecting moulded string course supported
by a range of corbels. Sometimes these corbels carry a small
arcade under the string course, the arches of which are pointed
and trefoiled. As a rule the corbel table carries the gutter, but
in Lombard work the arcaded corbel table was utilized as a
decoration to subdivide the storeys and break up the wall surface.
In Italy sometimes over the corbels will be a moulding, and above
a plain piece of projecting wall forming a parapet (see also Masonry).
CORBET, RICHARD (1582–1635), English bishop and poet,
was born in 1582, the son of a nurseryman at Ewell, Surrey. At
Oxford, to which he proceeded from Westminster school in
1597, he was noted as a wit. On taking orders he continued to
display this talent from the pulpit, and James I., in consideration
of his “fine fancy and preaching,” made him one of the royal
chaplains. In 1620 he became vicar of Stewkley, Berkshire,
and in the same year was made dean of Christchurch, Oxford.
In 1628 he was made bishop of Oxford, and in 1632 translated
thence to the see of Norwich. Corbet was the author of many
poems, for the most part of a lively, satirical order, his most
serious production being the Fairies’ Farewell. His verses
were first collected and published in 1647. His conviviality
was famous, and many stories are told of his youthful merry-making
in London taverns in company with Ben Jonson, who
always remained his close friend, and other dramatists. He
died at Norwich on the 28th of July 1635.
CORBIE (Lat. corvus), a crow or raven. In architecture,
“corbie steps” is a Scottish term (cf. Corbel) for the steps
formed up the sides of the gable by breaking the coping into
short horizontal beds.
CORBRIDGE, a small market town in the Hexham parliamentary
division of Northumberland, England; 312 m. E. of
Hexham, on the north bank of the river Tyne, which is here crossed
by a fine seven-arched bridge dating from 1674. Pop. (1901)
1647. Corbridge was formerly of greater importance than at
present. Its name, derived from the small river Cor, a tributary
of the Tyne, is said to be associated with the Brigantian tribe
of Corionototai. About 760 it became the capital of Northumbria;
later it was a borough and was long represented in parliament.
In 1138 David of Scotland made it a centre of military
operations, and it was ravaged by Wallace in 1296, by Bruce in
1312, and by David II. in 1346. Its chief remains of antiquity are
a square peel-tower and the cruciform church of St Andrew,
of which part of the fabric is of pre-Conquest date, though the
building is mainly Early English. Extensive use is made of
building materials from the Roman station of Corstopitum (also
called Corchester), which lay half a mile west of Corbridge at
the junction of the Cor with the Tyne. This site has from time
to time yielded many valuable relics, notably a silver dish,
discovered in 1734, 148 oz. in weight and ornamented with
figures of deities; but the first-rate importance of the station
was only revealed by careful excavations undertaken in 1907 seq.
There were then unearthed remains of several buildings fronting
a broad thoroughfare, one of which is the largest Roman building,
except the baths at Bath, yet discovered in England. Two of
these buildings were granaries, and indicate the importance of
Corstopitum as a base of the northward operations of Antoninus
Pius. After his conquests had been lost, and Corstopitum
ceased to be a military centre, its military buildings passed into
civilian occupation, of which many evidences have been found.
A fine hoard of gold coins, wrapped in lead-foil and hidden in a
wall, was discovered in 1908. Corstopitum ceased to exist
early in the 5th century, and the site was never again occupied.
CORBULO, GNAEUS DOMITIUS (1st century A.D.), Roman general, was the half-brother of Caesonia, one of the wives of the emperor Caligula. In the reign of Tiberius he held the office of praetor, and was appointed to the superintendence of the roads and bridges. Under Claudius he was governor of lower Germany (A.D. 47). He punished the Frisii who refused to pay the tribute, and was on the point of advancing against the Chauci, but was recalled by the emperor and ordered to withdraw behind the Rhine. In order to provide employment for his soldiers, Corbulo made them cut a canal from the Mosa (Meuse) to the northern branch of the Rhine, which still forms one of the chief drains between Leiden and Sluys, and before the introduction of railways was the ordinary traffic road between Leiden and Rotterdam. Soon after the accession of Nero, Vologaeses (Vologasus), king of Parthia, overran Armenia, drove out Rhadamistus,
who was under the protection of the Romans, and set his own brother Tiridates on the throne. Corbulo was thereupon sent out to the East with full military powers. After some delay, he took
