Top 200 Photos: #131


To England for today’s Top 200 Photo.

photo #131 is:
Constantine - My Legacy

I had the good fortune of being sent to England on a work trip. Danielle was able to take some time off from work to join me for a week. We took day trips and weekend trips throughout England whenever I was off from work. One of the places we went to was York – partly because Danielle is from New York – so I thought she should see “Old” York. While there we saw York Minster. That was so much fun because it was so beautiful in there and also because York has such a rich history.

Back during the Roman times, there was an important fort built on the site where the church would eventually be built. In fact, Hadrian’s Wall is not too far from there and was used to keep the barbarians (from the Roman point of view) out of the portion of Britain they had conquered. The site near the minster is also important because it was at that Fort where Constantine was proclaimed the Emperor of the Roman Empire. And Constantine eventually becomes the the one who makes Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire after he sees a sign from God before a battle.

After we finished with the church we went into a gift shop near the statue and saw some of the post cards. This particular photo came from a challenge from Danielle to try and match the look of one of the post cards. I think I did a good job and it would look better if they hadn’t been doing reconstruction work on the minster.

It’s a pretty important city because of its location in England so you can read more about it on Wikipedia here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York) and you can read more about the minster here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Minster)


2 responses to “Top 200 Photos: #131”

  1. Fun trivia on the origins of the word barbarian:

    “The term originates in the ancient Greek civilization, meaning “anyone who is not Greek”, and thus was often used to refer to other civilized people, such as the people of the Persian Empire.”

    More modern usage has turned it into a pejorative, but it used to just mean ‘other’

    • I love that. Read a greek historical fiction novel that played on that and how the Romans were barbarians who would never amount to anything