Annus Domini (Year of the Incarnation)
Lat. Annus Domini ('Year of our Lord')
The Christian calendar reckoning numbering years from the presumed incarnation and birth of Jesus Christ, invented by Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century.
Anglo-Saxon England was the first society in Europe to use the *Annus Domini* system routinely in public legal documents, pioneered in eighth-century diplomas and canonised by the Venerable Bede.
Arenga / Proemium (Proem)
Med. Lat. arenga (rhetorical harangue) / Gr. prooimion (prelude, preamble)
A formal spiritual or moral preamble meditating upon the transience of mortal existence, the vanity of terrestrial riches, and the wisdom of purchasing eternal beatitude through pious gifts.
The proem reached high rhetorical artistry in Mercian synodal decrees and Alfredian diplomas, warning that all earthly prosperity fades like a shadow unless redeemed by perpetual grants to the Church.