A 1701 book edited by John LeClerc includes 'Before Christ according to the Vulgar Æra, 6'. A 1635 English edition of that book has the title page in English – so far, the earliest-found use of Vulgar Era in English. Kepler uses it again, as ab Anno vulgaris aerae, in a 1616 table of ephemerides, and again, as ab anno vulgaris aerae, in 1617. The first known use of the Latin term anno aerae nostrae vulgaris occurred in a 1615 book by Johannes Kepler. (The word 'vulgar' originally meant 'of the ordinary people', with no derogatory associations.) The term 'Common Era' is traced back in English to its appearance as ' Vulgar Era' to distinguish dates on the Ecclesiastic calendar in popular use from dates of the regnal year, the year of the reign of a sovereign, typically used in national law. Johannes Kepler first used 'Vulgar Era' to distinguish dates on the Christian calendar from the regnal year typically used in national law. They are used by others who wish to be sensitive to non-Christians by not referring to Jesus, the center figure of Christianity, especially via the religious terms ' Christ' and Dominus ('Lord') utilized by the other abbreviations.

Since the later 20th century, BCE and CE have become popular in academic and scientific publications because BCE and CE are religiously neutral terms.

The term 'Common Era' can be found in English as early as 1708, and became more widely used in the mid-19th century by Jewish religious scholars. The expression can be traced back to 1615, when it first appears in a book by Johannes Kepler as the Latin: annus aerae nostrae vulgaris ( year of our common era), and to 1635 in English as ' Vulgar Era'. The two notation systems are numerically equivalent: '2023 CE' and 'AD 2023' each describe the current year '400 BCE' and '400 BC' are the same year. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the original Anno Domini (AD) and Before Christ (BC) notations used for the same calendar era. For other uses, see BCE (disambiguation).Ĭommon Era ( CE) and Before the Common Era ( BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era.

Anno 1701 guide