Corvey Abbey - the former Imperial Abbey of the Order of St. Benedict, was founded in 815 by Louis the Pious, who carried out the will of his father, Emperor Charlemagne, who, after the conquest of Saxony, began to Christianize the population of these lands. The monastery was originally located in an area called Hethis; its first monks were the Benedictine Fathers, who arrived at the invitation of Louis the Pious from the French Abbey of St. Peter in Corby. The monastery was originally called "New Corby", and only over time its name was transformed into "Corvey". In 822, the monastery was moved to its current location - on the western bank of the Weser River, two kilometers northeast of the city of Höxter. Corvey Abbey thus began to be located on the royal Hellweg trade route - one of the busiest roads of medieval Germany, originating in the lands of the North Rhine and passing through the whole of Westphalia to the lands of Central Germany. In 823, the relics of St. Stephen were brought to Corvey, and in 836, the relics of the Roman martyr St. Vitus were brought from the Abbey of Saint-Denis in Paris. From this moment on, Corvey Abbey becomes a place of pilgrimage for Christians and one of the most influential abbeys in Europe. Corvey was often visited by German emperors; meetings of the royal council were held within its walls, and during monarchs’ trips around the country, the abbey was used as a royal residence. The monastery received the status of an Imperial Abbey, enjoyed royal privileges (for example, had the right to mint coins); the monastery's possessions included more than thirty plots of land, often located hundreds of kilometers from the abbey. In the Middle Ages, Corvey was the spiritual, religious, economic and political center of Northern Europe. The monastery library housed priceless manuscripts, including the first five books of Tacitus’s “Annals”; in the scriptorium of the abbey, the monks worked on writing chronicles - the famous “Annals of Corvey”, copied ancient manuscripts and the works of ancient philosophers and poets - Cicero, Virgil, Pliny the Elder and Titus Libya. The monastery's treasury contained priceless relics and works of sacred art, which the abbey received as donations from emperors and pilgrims. In the 15th century, during the Late Middle Ages, Corvey Abbey lost its power, and during the Thirty Years' War, most of the monastery's buildings were destroyed, the library and treasury were looted. Since Carolingian times, only the westwork - the monumental western facade of the former monastery church - has survived on the territory of the abbey. The Westwork was built in 873-885 in the style of the so-called Carolingian Revival. It was originally built with three towers, but in the years 1145-1159 the middle tower was demolished and the height of the two remaining towers was increased to its current size. From the interior of the westwork, the vaulted columned hall and the main temple room, surrounded on three sides by an arcade gallery, have been preserved. By the end of the 18th century, despite the decline of the abbey, the Pope raised the status of Corvey to a principality-bishopric. In 1803, during the French occupation, the monastery was secularized, and after the Napoleonic wars, the Landgraves of Hesse-Rothenburg began to own Corvey, who rebuilt the abbey buildings into a princely residence in the Baroque style. Nowadays, Corvey Castle houses a museum, the main treasure of which is a huge library occupying 15 rooms of the Landgraves' Palace (from 1860 until his death in 1874, the Corvey library was headed by the German poet Hoffmann von Fallersleben, the author of the text for the famous "Song of the Germans" on music by Joseph Haydn). The library has 74 thousand volumes and is considered the largest private library in Germany. In 2014, the former Imperial Abbey of Corvey was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
