In 313 AD, Western Emperor Constantine I and Eastern Emperor Licinius met in the city of Milan, Italy, and issued a political agreement known as the Edict of Milan. This decree granted benevolent legal status to Christianity and returned confiscated properties to Christians, effectively ending centuries of institutionalized imperial persecution. It marked the beginning of the Peace of the Church and initiated the transformation of Christianity from an illegal underground movement into the dominant religious and cultural force of the Roman Empire.

With the end of state persecution, Christian poetry transitioned from clandestine apocalyptic allegories to celebratory public liturgies. This era birthed the triumphal, public Latin hymns of Prudentius and Saint Ambrose, establishing liturgical poetry as an official, celebrated civic art form within Western civilization.