JUSTINIAN AND RECONQUEST(541–2). His reign saw a last fl owering of Greek and Latin literary composi-
tion, within an administrative system that was still that of the late Roman
empire. He followed the example of his predecessors in continuing to struggle
to achieve church unity, actively intervening in theological debate and sum-
moning the Fifth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 553. However,
he was not successful in his attempts to unify the church, and his reign saw
the formation of a separatist church in the east, while as we saw the council
was also a failure in the west. Justinian’s later years saw a succession of plots,
disillusion and dangerous attacks from new enemies, Huns, Slavs and Avars.
Edward Gibbon was not sure whether to count Justinian as the last great
Roman emperor or the fi rst of the ‘Greeks’ (by which he meant the Byzan-
tines), and like Constantine Justinian has provoked very different assessments
in modern historiography.^1
The early years: Justinian’s codification of the lawWithin only a few months after becoming emperor, Justinian announced to the
senate his plan of initiating the vast enterprise of collecting, editing and codify-
ing the whole of previous Roman civil law, a task which was completed within
fi ve years, and which resulted in the three works already mentioned, all in Latin:
the Codex Justinianus, the Digest and the Institutes, which together made up the
Corpus iuris civilis.^2 For this purpose he set up a commission led by the praetorian
prefect John the Cappadocian to collect and edit all imperial constitutions from
the reign of Diocletian onwards and including the Codex Theodosianus, as well as
all subsequent new laws (Novellae). The new Codex was promulgated with amaz-
ing speed in April 529, and reissued in revised form in 534 by a new commission
led by the quaestor Tribonian, who was also in charge of producing the Digest, a
vast compendium of non-imperial civil law.^3 The Institutes, promulgated late in
533, were aimed at law students in Constantinople, Rome and Berytus (Beirut),
and also regulated the fi ve years required for legal study. The whole was noth-
ing less than a complete statement of all Roman law, edited and brought up to
date for the sixth century – nothing that was not included in these compilations
could be cited or had the force of law. Some contemporary sources give an idea
of how these books were actually used by students and lawyers in Justinian’s
reign, and of the difference their publication had made when compared to the
confused body of material that had previously existed.^4 After their publication,
Justinian continued to legislate, issuing new laws, known as Novellae; these were
binding on the whole empire, and if addressed to Illyria or Africa they were
issued in Latin, whereas those meant for the eastern provinces were in Greek.
These were not collected, and soon led to the sort of contradictions and confu-
sion that had existed before the publication of the Corpus.
Justinian’s Corpus was not a Christian compilation as such, but the emperor
appealed in it to God and the Trinity, and the legislation was proclaimed in
the name of Christ as well as that of Justinian. Some of Justinian’s own leg-
islation did, however, deal with church matters, or show Christian infl uence,