CORBAN (ןברק), an Aramaic word meaning “a consecrated gift.” Josephus uses the word of Nazirites and of the temple treasure of Jerusalem. Such a votive offering lay under a curse if it were diverted to ordinary purposes, like the spoil of Jericho which Achan appropriated (Josh. vii.), or the temple treasure of Delphi which was seized by the Phocians, 356 B.C. The word is found in Mark vii. 11, the usual interpretation of which is that Jesus refers to an abuse—a man might declare that any part of his property which came into his parents’ hands was corban, consecrated, i.e. that a curse rested on any benefit they might get from it. The Jewish scribes thus fenced the law of vows with a traditional interpretation which made men break the most binding injunctions of the Mosaic Law, in this case the fifth commandment. A totally different explanation of the passage is put forward by J. H. A. Hart in The Jewish Quarterly Review for July 1907, the gist of which is that Jesus commends the Pharisees for insisting that when a man has vowed a vow to God he should pay it even though his parents should suffer.
CORBEIL, WILLIAM OF (d. 1136), archbishop of Canterbury, was born probably at Corbeil on the Seine, and was educated at Laon. He was soon in the service of Ranulf Flambard, bishop of Durham; then, having entered the order of St Augustine, he became prior of the Augustinian foundation at St Osyth in Essex. At the beginning of 1123 he was chosen from among several candidates to be archbishop of Canterbury, and as he refused to admit that Thurstan, archbishop of York, was independent of the see of Canterbury, this prelate refused to consecrate him, and the ceremony was performed by his own suffragan bishops. Proceeding to Rome the new archbishop found that Thurstan had anticipated his arrival in that city and had made out a strong case against him to Pope Calixtus II.; however, the exertions of the English king Henry I. and of the emperor Henry V. prevailed, and the pope gave William the pallium. The archbishop’s next dispute was with the papal 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 super-incumbent 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]).