The era of the world has prevailed in the East since the sixth general council, (A.D. 681.) In the West, the Christian era was first invented in the sixth century: it was propagated in the eighth by the authority and writings of venerable Bede; but it was not till the tenth that the use became legal and popular. See l'Art de Veriner les Dates, Dissert. Preliminaire, p. iii. xii. Dictionnaire Diplomatique, tom. i. p. 329 - 337; the works of a laborious society of Benedictine monks.