Corbie Abbey

It was founded in 661 under the Merovingian royal patronage of Balthild, widow of Clovis II, and her son Clotaire III.

The first monks came from Luxeuil Abbey, which had been founded by Saint Columbanus in 590, and the Irish respect for classical learning fostered there was carried forward at Corbie.

The clear and legible hand known as Carolingian minuscule was also developed at the scriptorium at Corbie,[2] as well as a distinctive style of illumination.

In this early Merovingian period, the work of Corbie was innovative in that it showed pictures of people, for example, Saint Jerome.

Dr. Tino Licht of Heidelberg University discovered a manuscript from Corbie Abbey written in the Caroline minuscule that predates Charlemagne's rule.

Under Adalard, the monastic school of Corbie attained great celebrity, and about the same time it sent forth a colony to found the Abbey of Corvey in Saxony.

Saint Gerald of Sauve-Majeure was born in Corbie and became a child oblate at the Abbey, where he then became a monk and served as cellarer.

After her parents died, in 1402 she joined the Third Order of St. Francis,[5] and became a hermit under the direction of the Abbot of Corbie, and lived near the abbey church.

During the French Revolution, the library was closed and the last of the monks dispersed: 300 manuscripts still at Corbie were moved to Amiens, 15 km to the west.

Those at St-Germain des Prés were released on the market, and many rare manuscripts were obtained by Russian diplomat Peter P. Dubrovsky and sent to St. Petersburg.