It refers to the Christian era, beginning with year 1 AD or Anno Domini ("in the year of the Lord"), meaning the supposed first year of Christ's life - this was probably calculated incorrectly, but that makes no difference to the current calendar. Since Christians believe that Christ did not die but was reborn we are now in the year of the Lord 2011, meaning 2,011 years since His birth.
Many other religions calculate dates in different ways, but many non-Christians and atheists happily use the Christian calendar.
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The great lord is simply a lord who is greater than some other lord. To a baron, this might be a count or earl. To a count or earl, it might mean a duke or king. The king was usually, but not always, at the top of the pyramid; sometimes a duke, prince, or emperor was at the top.
CE next to a number indicates that the number is a year of either the Gregorian calendar or the Julian calendar. It stands for Common Era or Christian Era. It was introduced as an alternative to the traditional AD, which stands for Anno Domini, which is Latin for In the Year of Our Lord, primarily because many non-Christians use the Gregorian calendar but are not comfortable referring to Jesus as their Lord. Also, just as BC, which stands for Before Christ, is used in conjunction with AD to indicate a year before the year AD 1, BCE, which stands for Before the Common Era or Before the Christian Era, is used in conjunction with CE to indicate a year before the year 1 CE (someone who would not call Jesus their Lord more than likely does not believe that He is the Christ, either).
C.E. replaces A.D. to mean the years after the alleged birth of Jesus. C.E. means "common era". It used to mean "Christian Era" and A.D. meant "Anno Domini" which meant "in the year of our Lord" in Latin. The old terms are considered culturally biased so they were changed to culturally neutral terms.
A poem of some sort?
liege lord