Partly as a result of these factors, some scholars have identified a distinctive form of Celtic Christianity, in which abbots were more significant than bishops, attitudes to clerical celibacy were more relaxed and there was some significant differences in practice with Roman Christianity, particularly the form of tonsure and the method of calculating Easter, although most of these issues had been resolved by the mid-seventh century.

The reported expulsion of Ionan monks and clergy by Nechtan in 717 may have been related to the controversy over the dating of Easter, and the manner of tonsure, where Nechtan appears to have supported the Roman usages, but may equally have been intended to increase royal power over the church.

Within Christianity, especially in Eastern Christianity and formerly in Western Roman Catholicism, the term cleric refers to any individual who has received the clerical tonsure, including deacons, priests, and bishops.

In Latin Roman Catholicism, the tonsure was a prerequisite for receiving any of the minor orders or major orders before the tonsure, minor orders, and the subdiaconate were abolished following the Second Vatican Council.

The other custom that consistently drew the ire of adherents to Roman custom was the Celtic tonsure.

The early material referring to the Celtic tonsure emphasizes its distinctiveness from the Roman alternative and invariably connects its use to the Celtic dating of Easter.

Those preferring the Roman tonsure considered the Celtic custom extremely unorthodox, and associated it with the form of tonsure worn by the heresiarch Simon Magus.

Later, the Roman party jeered at it as the tonsura Simonis Magi, in contradistinction to their " tonsure of St. Peter ".

The tonsure is also mentioned in a passage, probably of the 7th century but attributed wrongly to Gildas ; " Britones toti mundo contrarii, moribus Romanis inimici, non solum in misa sed in tonsura etiam " (" Britons are contrary to the whole world, enemies of Roman customs, not only in the Mass but also in regard to the tonsure ").

At the Synod of Whitby, King Oswy of Northumberland accepted Roman practices regarding the keeping of Easter and the shape of the tonsure.

Ratramnus ’ defense of Western theology and practice in his Against the Objections of the Greeks who Slandered the Roman Church, is largely occupied with proving the filioque, although the final section of the work deals with other disagreements, such as the monastic tonsure and priestly celibacy.

Roman tonsure

Hence Theodore of Tarsus, who had acquired his learning in Byzantine Asia Minor and bore this tonsure, had to allow his hair to grow for four months before he could be tonsured after the Roman fashion, and then ordained Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Vitalian in 668.

Apart from this general clerical tonsure, some Western Rite monastic orders, for example Carthusians and Trappists, employed a very full version of tonsure, shaving the head entirely bald and keeping only a narrow ring of short hair, sometimes called " the monastic crown " ( see " Roman tonsure ", above ), from the time of entrance into the monastic novitiate for all monks, whether destined for service as priests or brothers.

The Synod of Whitby established the Roman date for Easter and the Roman style of monastic tonsure in Britain.

In 664 the Synod of Whitby, at which King Oswiu ruled that the Northumbrian church would adopt the Roman calculation of Easter and monastic tonsure took place at the abbey.

Since the Council of Trent in 16th century, " Exorcist " was one of the four minor orders in the Roman Catholic Church, received after the tonsure.

Born in Trier, he belonged to a noble family which had been for many generations connected with the court and diocese of the archbishop-elect on, his father, Kaspar von Hontheim, being receiver-general of the archdiocese At the age of twelve young Hontheim was given by his maternal uncle, canon of the collegiate church of St Simeon ( which at that time still occupied the Roman Porta Nigra at Trier ), a prebend in his church, and on May 13, 1713 he received the tonsure.

These were partly caused by the explosion in population, but also to concentrate economic power at strategic locations, while formerly cities only existed in the shape of either old Roman foundations or older bishoprics.

Roman meander patterns gradually developed in complexity towards the fourfold shape that is now familiarly known as the medieval form.

The literary and practical achievements of the jurists of this period gave Roman law its unique shape.

Roman spout in shape of a duck's head, found at Derby racecourse and now at Derby Museum and Art Gallery.

More complex fonts such as the Roman text fonts in the Computer Modern family use a small pen to trace around the outline of the visual " strokes ", which are then filled ; the result is much like an outline font, but with slightly softened corners defined by the pen shape.

Ancient Roman amphitheatres were major public venues, circular or oval in shape, and used for events such as gladiator combats, chariot races, venationes ( animal slayings ) and executions.

Their typical shape, functions and name distinguish them from Roman theatres, which are usually semicircular in shape ; from the circuses ( akin to hippodromes ) whose much longer circuits were designed mainly for horse or chariot racing events ; and from the smaller stadia, which were primarily designed for athletics and footraces.

A Roman surface can be constructed by splicing together three hyperbolic paraboloids and then smoothing out the edges as necessary so that it will fit a desired shape ( e. g. parametrization ).

Another explanation holds that the sea monster which could change shape is actually the Roman form of government ; and that the Merovingians and their Frankish legacy would indeed continue the legal and cultural tradition of the Roman Empire throughout Central and Northern Europe ( and thus the world ) in direct and indirect ways.

Historically, viscera of animals were examined by Roman pagan priests like the haruspices or the augurs in order to divine the future by their shape, dimensions or other factors.

In colonial times all grants of land from the Lords Baltimore were in the shape of leases subject to small and merely nominal ground rents, reserved by the Proprietary, and payable annually at Michaelmas, the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, which in the calendar of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches occurs on September 29 ; hence St. Michael was considered to be the patron saint of colonial Maryland, and as such was honored by the river being named for him.

The lituus was a crooked wand ( similar in shape to the top part of a crosier ) used as a cult instrument in ancient Roman religion by augurs to mark out a ritual space in the sky ( a templum ).

A document of 1280 records a town built on the site of a Roman fort as Castrum Sex or " six-sided camp ", referring to the fort's shape of an irregular hexagon.

* Roman d ' Aubéron-the Turin manuscript of the romance ( the only manuscript to contain all of the continuations ) contains the only version of this 14th-century prologue in the shape of a separate romance of Auberon.

However, Dr. Feather stated in the same documentary that an iron pin – long claimed to be a nail from the crucifixion, hammered into the blade and set off by tiny brass crosses – is " consistent " in length and shape with a 1st century A. D. Roman nail.

The construction of the first technically advanced true domes began in the Roman Architectural Revolution, when they were frequently used by the Romans to shape large interior spaces of temples and public buildings, such as the Pantheon.

The domed " Decagon " nave of St. Gereon's Basilica in Cologne, Germany, a ten-sided space in an oval shape, was built between 1219 and 1227 upon the remaining low walls of a 4th century Roman martyrium.

Use of a simplified symbol associated with Saint Andrew which does not depict his image, namely the saltire, or crux decussata, ( from the Latin crux, ' cross ', and decussis, ' having the shape of the Roman numeral X '), has its origins in the late 14th century ; the Parliament of Scotland having decreed in 1385 that Scottish soldiers shall wear a white Saint Andrew's Cross on their person, both in front and behind, for the purpose of identification.

It receives its name from the (" little key ") because the bone rotates along its axis like a key when the shoulder is abducted, and it is roughly the same shape as a key for a Roman door lock.

The picturesque covered bridge ( bombed down in the Second World War and subsequently rebuilt in a similar shape and position ), which joins Pavia to the suburb on the right bank of the river, was preceded by a Roman bridge, of which only one pillar, in blocks of granite from the Baveno quarries, exists under the remains of the central arch of the medieval bridge, the rest having no doubt served as material for the latter.

According to the 1875 London Dictionary of Greek & Roman Antiquities a Stilus is " an object tapering like an architectural column ; a metal instrument resembling a pencil in size and shape, used for writing or recording impressions upon waxed tablets.

Powell concluded that a Roman Catholic crown would be the destruction of the Church of England because " it would contradict the essential character of that church ".

* Bar, a historic duchy of both the Holy Roman Empire and the crown of France ; see Counts and Dukes of Bar

The result was that, more often than not, bishops, abbots of monasteries, and even the pope were not independent, but resembled lackeys or sycophants of the crown of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Ottomans insisted on this elevated style while refusing to recognize the Holy Roman Emperors or the Russian tsars because of their rival claims of the Roman crown.

Juana, Isabella's second daughter, married into the Habsburg dynasty when she wed Philip the Handsome, the son of Maximilian I, King of Bohemia ( Austria ) and entitled to the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor.

By 1212 John had successfully concluded alliances with Renault of Dammartin, who controlled Boulogne, and Count Ferdinand of Flanders, as well as Otto IV, a contender for the crown of Holy Roman Emperor in Germany ; Otto was also John's nephew.

Ventidius won a series of victories against the Parthians, killing the crown prince Pacorus and expelling them from the Roman territories they had seized.

In 800 Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish ruler Charlemagne as Roman Emperor, a major step toward establishing what later became known as the Holy Roman Empire ; from that date onward the popes claimed the prerogative to crown the Emperor, though the right fell into disuse after the coronation of Charles V in 1530.

In spite of agreeing to crown Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, Clement III angered him by bestowing Sicily on Tancred.

It is the business of the pope to look after the interests of the Roman empire, since the empire derives its origin and its final authority from the papacy ; its origin, because it was originally transferred from Greece by and for the sake of the papacy ... its final authority, because the emperor is raised to his position by the pope who blesses him, crowns him and invests him with the empire .... Therefore, since three persons have lately been elected king by different parties, namely the youth son of Henry VI, Philip Hohenstaufen, brother of Henry VI, and Otto Brunswick, of the Welf family, so also three things must be taken into account in regard to each one, namely: the legality, the suitability and the expediency of his election ...... Far be it from us that we should defer to man rather than to God, or that we should fear the countenance of the powerful .... On the foregoing grounds, then, we decide that the youth should not at present be given the empire ; we utterly reject Philip for his manifest unfitness and we order his usurpation to be resisted by all .... since Otto is not only himself devoted to the church, but comes from devout ancestors on both sides ..... therefore we decree that he ought to be accepted and supported as king, and ought to be given the crown of empire, after the rights of the Roman church have been secured.

Supporters of Guy II of Spoleto forced Formosus to crown him as a Roman Emperor in April 892.

In 1208, Philip of Swabia, the successful candidate for becoming the next emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was assassinated, meaning that the imperial crown was given to his rival, Otto IV, the nephew of King John.

The native Irish, for example, while subject to the British crown, were opposed to the Anglican and dissenting churches, and almost all remained loyal to the Roman Catholic Church, suffering the same penalties as recusants in Great Britain, albeit exacerbated by various ethnic and other issues.

The province became part of the Bohemian Crown under the Holy Roman Empire, and passed with that crown to the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria in 1526.

According to Hungarian tradition, Pope Silvester II, with the consent of Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor, sent a magnificent jeweled gold crown to Stephen along with an apostolic cross and a letter of blessing officially recognizing Stephen as the Christian king of Hungary.

At that point, a decisive victory for Austria, uniting the Holy Roman Empire with the Spanish crown, would have upset the balance of power just as much as a victory for France.

* Pope Innocent III reasserts his right to evaluate and crown the Holy Roman Emperor, in a letter to the duke of Zahringen.

* 1274 – November – The diet at Nuremberg orders that all crown estates seized since the death of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor be restored to Rudolph I of Germany ; almost all European rulers agree, with the notable exception of King Otakar II of Bohemia, who had benefited greatly by conquering or otherwise coming into possession of many of those lands.

Leo agreed to invest Charles V with the Kingdom of Naples, to crown him Holy Roman Emperor, and to aid in a war against Venice.

He wore the regalia traditionally associated both with the ancient Roman monarchy and with the statue of Jupiter Capitolinus: the purple and gold " toga picta ", laurel crown, red boots and ( again, possibly ) the reddened face of Rome's supreme deity.

Albert had failed in his attempt to seize the counties of Holland and Zeeland, as vacant fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire, on the death of Count John I in 1299, but in 1306 he secured the crown of Bohemia for his son Rudolph III on the death of King Wenceslaus III.

* November – The diet at Nuremberg orders that all crown estates seized since the death of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor be restored to Rudolph I of Germany ; almost all European rulers agree, with the notable exception of King Otakar II of Bohemia, who had benefited greatly by conquering or otherwise coming into possession of many of those lands.