The Constantinian shift began in 312 when Constantine I adopted Christianity as his imperial cult after the Battle of Milvian Bridge. His legions, who were victorious, fought under the Labarum, the first two Greek letters of Christ's name. In 313 the Edict of Milan legitimized Christianity alongside other religions practiced in the Roman Empire. In AD 314 Pope Silvester in the reign of Emperor Constantine I, who built the Lateran and other churches. Sent legates to the First Council of Nicaea, and was involved in the controversy over Arianism. The spurious Donation of Constantine was supposedly given to Saint Sylvester. Constantine I of the Roman Empire starts legislating Christian beliefs into civil law. Constantinople dedicated as the second capital of the Roman Empire in 330, twenty years before Ulfilas missionary to the Goths.
"Let all judges and all city people and all tradesmen rest upon the venerable day of the sun. But let those dwelling in the country freely and with full liberty attend to the culture of their fields; since it frequently happens that no other day is so fit for the sowing of grain, or the planting of vines; hence, the favorable time should not be allowed to pass, lest the provisions of heaven be lost." — Given the seventh of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls, each for the second time. A.D. 321.
The early British church is known to have sent Bishops to the Council of Arles in 314 AD
Brythonic gave rise to two British Isles languages, Welsh and Cornish, as well as surviving on the Continent in the form of Breton, spoken in Brittany. Some of the differences between Italic and Celtic included that lack of a p in Celtic and an a in place of an the Italic o. There are still words common to the two Celtic subgroups and the vowel w and double letters with difference between neighboring vowels. When the Irish expansion into Pictish Britain occurred several colonies were established in present day Wales. The local inhabitants called the Irish arrivals gwyddel savages from which comes geídil and goidel and thus the Goidelic tounge. Ireland used to be divided up into five parts, the five fifths. The Ulster Cycle is a set of stories which are grounded in the five fifths- the greatest story of the Ulster Cycle, the Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley.) Sometime after 300 AD, Ulster became steadily less important in status among the five farthings and the ruling family of Mide, the Uí Néill Sons of Niall started to take over large parts of Connaught and most of Ulster. A similar move was made in Muster by the ruling family of (Desmond) South Munster, the Eoganachta family. Thus was Ireland divided almost entirely into two halves. The people of Ulster were pushed to a small coastal strip bordering the Irish Sea. The kingdom changed it's name to Dál Riata. Yet eventually Dál Riata fell under the rule and influence of the Uí Néill. This family, not content with the boundry presented by the sea, launched colonies across the Irish Sea into then Pictish Britain. Thus was Scotland founded, for it was these Uí Néill that the Romans called the Scotti, not the original Picts. Irish Expansion which led to Christianity in Scotland in 563 AD. Saint Columba, the patron saint of Scotland, a family member of Dal Riata.
The early British church is known to have sent Bishops to the Council of Arles in 314 AD - well before the arrival of St. Augustine in Canterbury in 597 AD. Early hagiographers - those who wrote the Saints' Lives established historical customs throughout the Roman Empire and the second Roman invasion was largely chronological to those remembering the languages in connection to how they lead to their meaning.
Hagia Sophia, originally a Christian church at Constantinople (Istanbul), later a mosque, and now converted into a museum. Hagia Sophia stands on the site of an earlier basilican church erected by Constantius II in 360, some 30 years after Byzantium had become the capital of the Roman Empire. This church was burned in 404 and rebuilt by Theodosius II in 415, only to be again destroyed by fire in 532. The present structure, which is entirely fireproof, was built in 532–37 by Emperor Justinian from designs of his imperial architects Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus. The building was rebuilt under the personal supervision of emperor Justinian I and rededicated on December 27, 537. As a result of severe earthquakes, the dome collapsed in 558, but it was rebuilt by 563 on a somewhat higher curve. Its loss to the Ottomans at the fall of Constantinople is considered one of the great tragedies of Christendom by the Greek Orthodox faith. Hagia Sophia was the seate of the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople and a principal setting for imperial ceremonies. During the Latin Occupation (1204-1261) the church became a Roman Catholic cathedral, and its many treasures and relics were dispersed. Although besieged innumerable times by various peoples, it was taken only three times—in 1204 by the army of the Fourth Crusade, in 1261 by Michael VIII, and in 1453 by the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II. Defended by Greek fire, it was also well fortified. The Greek fire, a lost art, was first used to repel the Arab siege of Constantinople in 674-677 (Battle of Syllaeum), and in 717-718. The Byzantines also used this powerful weapon against the Varangians (Vikings) in 941 and against the Venetians during the Fourth Crusade. With the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Hagia Sophia became a mosque, and in subsequent years all the interior figure mosaics were obscured under coatings of plaster and painted ornament; most of the Christian symbols elsewhere were obliterated.
The Coptic Church is Egyptian, from a possible 'desert father' and the topography of the monastic model of an ascetic lifestyle and the likely model for the Celtic monastic saints and perhaps on occassion, the Greek alphabet. The Coptic Language replaced Koine Greek, an ancient Greek dialect which marks the second stage in the history of the Greek language. The Coptic Church is based on the teachings of Saint Mark who brought Christianity to Egypt during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero in the first century, a dozen of years after the Lord's ascension. The Nicene Creed, which is recited in all churches throughout the world, has been authored by one of its favorite sons, Saint Athanasius, the Pope of Alexandria for 46 years, from 327 A.D. to 373 A.D.
The See of Ossory, akin to Kells, like that of Meath, takes its name from a district, was originally established at Saiger, now Seir-Kieran, in the territory of Ely O'Carrol, about the yeare 402, by St. Kieran (Ciaran). It is increasingly believed the ornate Book of Kells was actually made on Iona by monks of the Columban church, and probably taken to Ireland in around 800 AD to preserve it from the Vikings, who had devastated Iona in 795 AD. As chronicled in the Táin, the only texts to have survived to the present day are tombstones and other stone markers, the majority of which were made between the fifth and seventh centuries CE. These stone markers were found in Southern Ireland and the West coast of Britain, among the ancient Irish settlements there. The Dalriada were a Gaelic tribe from the coastal districts of what is now County Antrim in North Ireland, and play a major role in early Scottish Celtic Christianity. A number of Celtic saints lived and worked in and around the kingdom of Dalriada in northwest Scotland. One of the best known is Saint Columba, or Columcille, of Iona (521-597 AD). He appears to have had an important role in a conference of kings in 575 AD, with Aed mac Ainmirech (later king of Tara) and Aedan mac Gabrain, king of Dál Riata, attending. It is here that Columba also made his famous defence of the bards. Columba died on 9 June 597 AD, at the age of 76, on Iona, as told by St. Adomnan in his "Life of Columba". Several other early manuscripts exist about Columba and some derive from monastic communities.
The Vendel era (550-793) is the given name to a Swedish part of the Germanic Iron Age (or, more generally, the Age of Migrations). The migrations and the upheaval in Central Europe had lessened somewhat, and two power regions had appeared in Europe - the Central-occupying Franks, and the Slavic princedoms in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. A third power, the Catholic Church had begun to expand its influence. The major areas of the Celtic Christian communities from fifth to eighth century were in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Brittany, and other parts of Gaul (France). The Celtic church in Wales finally submitted to Rome in 768 AD. In Scotland, the "Culdees" (Keledei) - clergy and monks who attempted to keep to the earlier Celtic ways - are mentioned in documents relating to legal and property matters up to the early 11th century but, by the time of David I, were largely forgotten. Some monasteries, such as Iona in Scotland, Kells in Ireland, or Lindisfarne in northeast England. Lindisfarne was a Celtic church and an important part of the Northumbrian church, which had its own distinct identity and Glastonbury with connection to St. Patrick.
In the Celtic religion, Druidry denote the practices of the ancient druids, the priestly class in ancient Celtic societies through much of Western Europe north of the Alps and in the British Isles. During Druidic practices, the Celtae-Galli evolved into modern Gaulish. The etymological origins of the word druid are varied and doubtful enough that the word may be pre-Indo-European. The most widespread view is that "druid" derives from the Celtic word for an oak tree (doire in Irish Gaelic), a word whose root also meant "wisdom." The Druids linked the Celtic peoples with their numerous gods, the lunar calendar and the sacred natural order. Druidic lore consisted of a large number of verses learned by heart, and we are told that sometimes twenty years were required to complete the course of study.
Tacitus, in describing the attack made on the island of Mona (Anglesey or Ynys Mon in Welsh) by the Romans under Suetonius Paulinus, represents the legionaries as being awestruck on landing by the appearance of a band of Druids, who, with hands uplifted towards heaven, poured forth terrible imprecations on the heads of the invaders. There may have been a Druidic teaching center on Anglesey (Ynys Mon) centered on magical lakes. Groves within forests were sacred because Romans and Christians alike cut them down and burned the wood. Britain was a headquarters of Druidism, but once every yeare a general assembly of the order was held within the territories of the Carnutes in Gaul. We find much earlier than the Brehon laws in Caesar's Gallic Wars the first and fullest account of the Druids. Caesar notes that all men of any rank and dignity in Gaul were included either among the Druids or among the nobles, two separate classes. Caesar also notes the druidic sense of the guardian spirit of the tribe, whom he translated as Dispater, with a general sense of Father Hades. After the 1st century CE, the continental Druids disappeared entirely. The story of Vortigern as reported by Nennius is one of the very few glimpses of Druidic survival in Britain after the Roman conquest. The most important Irish documents are contained in manuscripts of the 12th century, but the texts themselves go back in large measure to about 700.
It is highly likely that all blue laws stem from the first such statute set down by the Emperor Constantine 1300 years before the Puritans. State and local regulations banning various activities on Sundays are called "blue laws." The origin of the term is uncertain. It has been said variously to have originated in the color of the paper on which a code of laws for the early New Haven, Connecticut, colony was printed or to have derived from the concept of being "true blue" to the law. Whatever the origin, these measures, which are based on the biblical injunction against working on the Sabbath, have been traced back to fourth-century Rome, when Constantine I, the first Christian emperor, commanded all citizens, except farmers, to rest on Sunday. The first blue law in America was enacted in the Virginia colony in the early 1600s and required church attendance. Although such legislation had its origins in European Sabbatarian and sumptuary laws, the term “blue laws” is usually applied only to American legislation. Subsequent charters for the Maryland Colony in 1632 and the Carolina Colony in 1665 further reduced the Virginia Colony to coastal borders it held until the American Revolution. Some of the settlers chose the Virginia Colony, and formed communities in present-day Chesterfield County and Powhatan County just west of Richmond, Virginia.