law, had access to the roads were responsible also
for their upkeep. An act of 1555 imposed four days of forced labour for
the repair of roads, and an act of Elizabeth (5 Eliz. c. 13) raised the
number of days to six, or the payment of a composition instead. The
system of turnpikes, dating from 1663, which gradually extended over the
whole of England, lessened the burden of this system of taxation, so far
as main roads were concerned, but the greater number of the local roads
were subject to repair by statutory labour until the Highways Act 1835,
by which highways were put under the direction of a parish surveyor, and
the necessary expenses met by a rate levied on the occupiers of land. In
Scotland, statutory labour on highways was created by an act of 1719,
and abolished in 1883.

In Egypt, the corvee has been employed from time immemorial, more
especially for the purpose of cleaning out the irrigation canals. In the
days when only one harvest a year was reaped, this forced labour was not
a very great burden, but the introduction of cotton and the sugar-cane
under Mehemet Ali changed the conditions. These latter are crops which
require watering at various seasons of the year, and very often the
fellah was called away for work in the canals at times when his own
crops required the utmost attention. Moreover, the inequality of the
corvee added to the evil. In some districts it was possible to purchase
exemption, and the more wealthy paid no more for the privilege than the
humblest fellah, consequently the corvee fell with undue hardship on the
poorer classes. Under the premiership of Riaz Pasha the corvee was
gradually abolished in Egypt between the years 1888 and 1891, and a
small rate on the land substituted to provide the labour necessary for
cleaning the canals. The corvee is now employed only to a limited extent
to guard the banks of the Nile during flood.

See Du Cange, _Glossarium inf. et med. Lat. s.v._ "Corvatae"; A
Luchaire, _Manuel des institutions francaises_ (Paris, 1892), pp.
346-349; _La Grande Encyclopedie, s.v._, with bibliography. For
further works see the bibliography to the article SERFDOM.

CORVEY, a place in the Prussian province of Westphalia, on the Weser, a
mile north of the town of Hoxter, with which it communicates by an
avenue of lime trees. During the middle ages it was famous for its great
Benedictine abbey, which was founded and endowed by the emperor Louis
the Pious about