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In sum, by 600 one may speak of a Christian Sunday in the old Roman provinces touching the Mediterranean. By 800 this had expanded into the large portions of northern Europe already Christianized. Like the Jewish Sabbath, Sunday had become the most important day of the week, indeed gave the week most of its meaning. Once thoroughly pagan, Sunday now had a decidedly Christian connotation. It would remain this way for so long that countless generations in the Western world would consider the day's very existence, name, and status as obvious, unquestioned facts of life, as if things had always been this way.

Excerpted from Sunday: A History of the First Day from Babylonia to the Superbowl by Craig Harline. By permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

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October (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51