What was Justinian's lasting contribution?

Answer 1

Justinian I (or the great) main legacies were/are in the fields of religion and law.

Justinian I protected the purity of the official church (the Orthodox Church and persecuted dissident Christian sects and paganism. He secured the rights of the church and the clergy and protected and expanded the monastic orders. He granted the monks the right to inherit property from private individuals and to receive annual gifts for the state and banned the confiscation of monastic property. He gave the canons of the church legal force and issued laws regarding the administration of church property, the elections, rights and obligations of the clergy, the conduct of service and episcopal jurisdiction. Justinian I was one of the most important emperors in the history of the Orthodox Church. He described as a 'nursing father' of the church. He put it on a more solid footing, and redefined its structure.

Justinian I's other main legacy was his commissioning of the Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil law) which was later dubbed the Justinian Code. This was a digest of centuries of Roman civil law, collected them in a single book (previously they had been kept in scrolls) and gave a uniform organisation this law, scrapped obsolete enactments and redefined obscure passages. It also included a collection of essays by famous jurists and a student textbook.

This work is famous for the impact it had in Western Europe when it was rediscovered in a library in Pisa in 1070. It quickly became very popular, was studied in European universities and influenced the development of law in western Europe. The civil law of many modern countries is based on this work.

Answer 2

The reign of Justinian I is seen as a distinct period of Byzantine history by historians. It was a period of conquest, splendour, great prosperity, important public works, administrative and religious reforms and imperial unity.

Justinian I wanted to 'restore' the Roman Empire by reconquering the lands lost by the Western Roman Empire as a result of the Germanic invasions. He succeeded in defeating the Vandals in Africa, retaking this area, the Ostrogoths, retaking Italy, Sicily and Dalmatia (on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea) and the Visigoths in Spain, retaking southern Spain. This gave him control of the western Mediterranean. The large state revenues the conquests generated (they increased by 20%) helped him with an ambitious programme of church building and public works. He rebuilt the damaged Church of the Holy Apostles and the Hagia Sophia church in Constantinople, which were both badly damaged, and built the church of San Vitale in Ravenna (the centre of Byzantine rule in Italy). He built underground cisterns to secure water supply for Constantinople, including the massive Basilica Cistern (453 by 212 feet and 30 ft. high). He built a dam is southwestern Turkey to prevent flood and the Sangiarius bridge in northwestern Turkey to secure a supply route to the east for the army. He built border fortifications from Africa to the East. Justinian restored towns damaged by an earthquake and built a new city, Justiniana Prima, as the new capital of the province of Illyria. He built a massive granary on an island near Constantinople to make the grain traffic form Egypt more efficient. He also established diplomatic relations with Ethiopia to bypass the land Silk Road through Persia because there were wars with Persia and managed to establish a local production of silk.

Justinian I took measures to tackle corruption in the provinces and made tax collection more efficient by increasing its professionalization. He protected the purity of the official church and persecuted dissident Christian sects and paganism. He secured the rights of the church and the clergy and protected and expanded the monastic orders. He granted the monks the right to inherit property from private individuals and to receive annual gifts for the state of from taxes and banned the confiscation of monastic property. He gave the canons of the church legal force and issued laws regarding the administration of church property, the elections and rights and obligations of the clergy, the conduct of service and episcopal jurisdiction. Justinian I was one of the most important emperors in the history of the Orthodox Church. He described as a 'nursing father' of the church and put it on a more solid footing, and redefined its structure. Justinian's rule was quite despotic. He regulated everything in administration, law and religion tightly. It was said that the church could do nothing contrary to his will.

Justinian I's most enduring legacy was his commissioning of the Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil law) which was later called the Justinian Code. This was a digest of centuries of Roman civil law and gave a uniform organisation this law, scrapped obsolete enactments and redefined obscure passages. It also included a collection of essays by famous jurists and a student textbook. The Corpus Juiris Civilis has provided the basis of the civil law of many modern countries.

Towards the end of his reign, the splendour and prosperity of his reign was undone by the outbreak of a major plague which decimated the population of the empire. Its impact has been compared to that of the Black Death in the Middle Ages.

Answer 3

The reign of Justinian I (or the Great) is seen as a distinct period of Byzantine history by historians. It was a period of conquest, great prosperity, important public works, administrative and religious reforms and imperial unity.

Justinian's major achievements were: 1) the reconquest of territories lost by the western part of the Roman Empire when it fell; 2) his laws which redefined, protected and strengthened the Orthodox Church; 3) the commissioning of the Corpus Juris Civilis (also dubbed Justinian Code); 4) important public works.

Justinian I wanted to 'restore' the Roman Empire by reconquering the lands lost by the western part of the Roman Empire as a result of the Germanic invasions. He succeeded in defeating the Vandals in Africa, retaking this area, the Ostrogoths, retaking Italy, Sicily and Dalmatia (on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea) and the Visigoths in Spain, retaking southern Spain. This was a major achievement and gave him control of the western Mediterranean.

The large state revenues the conquests generated (they increased by 20%) helped Justinian with an ambitious programme of church building and public works. He rebuilt the damaged Church of the Holy Apostles and the Hagia Sophia church in Constantinople, which were both badly damaged, and built the church of San Vitale in Ravenna (the centre of Byzantine rule in Italy). He built underground cisterns to secure the water supply for Constantinople, including the massive Basilica Cistern (453 by 212 feet and 30 ft. high). He built a dam is south-western Turkey to prevent floods and the Sangiarius bridge in north-western Turkey to secure a supply route to the east for the army. He built border fortifications from Africa to the East. Justinian restored towns damaged by an earthquake and built a new city, Justiniana Prima, as the new capital of the province of Illyria. He built a massive granary on an island near Constantinople to make the grain traffic form Egypt more efficient. He also established diplomatic relations with Ethiopia to bypass the land Silk Road through Persia because there were wars with Persia and managed to establish a local production of silk.

Justinian I was one of the most important emperors in the history the Orthodox Church, the official church of the empire. He was described as a nursing father of the church. He put the church on a more solid footing and redefined its structure. He wanted to protect its purity and persecuted dissident Christian sects. He secured the rights of the church and the clergy and protected and expanded the monastic orders. He granted the monks the right to inherit property from private individuals and to receive annual gifts for the state and banned the confiscation of monastic property. He gave the canons of the church legal force and issued laws regarding the administration of church property, the elections, rights and obligations of the clergy, the conduct of service and episcopal jurisdiction. Justinian also persecuted dissident Christian doctrines. He rebuilt the famous Hagia Sophia Church in Constantinople and built the church of San Vitale in Ravenna, the capital of the Byzantine possessions in Italy.

Justinian I took measures to tackle corruption in the provinces and made tax collection more efficient by increasing its professionalization. Justinian's rule was quite despotic. He regulated everything in administration, law and religion tightly. It was said that the church could do nothing contrary to his will. He started the byzantine tradition of the emperor being in charge of the church.

Justinian I commissioned the Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law) which was dubbed Justinian code in the 16th century. This was a comprehensive compendium and revision of four centuries of Roman law.

This collection of books was rediscovered in a library in Pisa in 1070. It had a big impact. Bologna University (established in 1088) was the first university in Europe and its major appeal was its faculty of law, which had four professors who specialised in studying interpreting this work. It attracted student all over Europe. The Corpus Juris Civilis became the plank of the development an emerging class of professional lawyers. It became the foundation of the law in the Italian city-states of the time and was used as the foundation of the law of the Holy Roman Empire, and was used for the civil law of many modern countries.

Answer 4

Included all of Rome's laws

Answer 5

Ancient roman empire was divided as west and east with the germani tribes so emperor Justinan (527B.C-565B.C) came into power in east roman empire or byantimr empire where the capital was constantinople, with the help of this uncle previous emperor Justin. Beginning of his regin was hard because he regained much of land lost to germanic tribes in western roman empire italian penisula where rome was much of northern africa and also during justinans rule there was a major riot against his regin which was contained.

Perhaps what justinan is most famous for his attempt to better codify laws.Roman law was in a chatioc condition beforre justine wher in one side differnet types of status law, constitutions from XII tables which are disorganises, really contadictory and on other side edits of praetors and whole juristc liturature documents with many inconsistencies.

Justinian got legal experts to go and collect the laws of the land to make them conststent to throw out the laws that was inconsistent, to add new laws as necessary and he did this over his entire reign and spread then so they are often refered to as the code of justinian .Justinian appointed 10 member commissioners to go through all constitutions which were copies of existing, unnecesary and eliminated all contradictary laws and statues this resulted in creating document of first code or the codex in 529A.D which outlined the actual law of the empire ,citing ,imperial constitution, legislation and pronouncements. Or statues systematized in the codex.

Justinian appointed a 16 member commission which the head Minister Tribonian to collect and summarize all the jurists liturature ,writings about law and justice this volumes are called digests or pandectes in 533 A.D .this results was published in 50 volumes.

Justinian moved on in creating a legal text book on law for lregal students after enactment of digest as a rulebook .Justinian also made Gaius wriitten as the basis of the institutes in 533 A.D for legal students complied by Tribonian ,Theophilius and Dorotheus .All law is either private or public ,this institutes mainly forcus on private law which includes person,things and actions.

Justinian issued many governing bodeis many dealings and continued to legislate and also issued constitutions to effect further reformation in law through out his rein .these were bought forward in The Novels (novellea constitutiones) in 556 A.D. novel was not a part of justinians project but was created separately by legal scholars in 556A.D to update the code with new laws created after 534 A.D and summarized justinains own constitution.

Justinians influence in codification of the whole in roman law created those above volumns codex, digests, institutions and novel which are known as the corpus lueis civilis. these are often refered to as the code of justinian these laws had influenced Byzantine empire for the next 900years and even some influenced or some relatively modern law.

Answer 6

He created a code