Year 9

Unit 5 - The Early Middle Ages

Lesson 4 - Why was Emperor Justinian so important?

As we have seen, with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, only the Eastern Roman remained strong and prosperous. Under the leadership of one of the greatest Roman emperors Justinian, Rome once again set out to reconquer the former Roman lands of the Mediterranean that had fallen into the hands of the 'barbarians'. To begin with we need to understand a little bit more about the unusual background of Justinian. Unlike Pope Gregory in the west, Justinian was not born into a life of wealth and privilege. 

Activity 1

Watch the video opposite. In your own words, explain briefly how Justinian became emperor. 

The importance of conquest

As a boy, Justinian had learned about the past glories of Rome, in the days when its emperors ruled all the Mediterranean world. 
His greatest ambition was to recover the western lands lost to the barbarians. He once wrote: ‘We have taken hope that the Lord will grant us the rest of the Empire, which the Romans of old . . . lost through idleness.’ 

Justinian began his ‘war of reconquest’ by attacking the Vandals in the the weakest of the barbarian kingdoms. In 533 his finest general, Belisarius, set sail with 15,000 troops and landed not far from Carthage. Belisarius’s foot-soldiers were fierce fighters, mostly recruited from tribes along the borders of the Empire. His cavalrymen, in their chain-mail coats and iron helmets, were the best in the world. The Vandal army was overrun and, within six months, a large part of North Africa was again a ‘Roman’ province.

Belisarius next attacked the East-Goths in Italy - Justinian’s main goal. Approaching by way of Sicily, he soon captured Rome (537) and Ravenna (540). The war seemed to be won. But the enemy suddenly recovered and fighting dragged on until 553, when the Goths were finally defeated. Large parts of Italy suffered great damage. Rome, which was captured and re-captured several times, became almost a heap of wreckage. Finally, Justinian’s forces moved against the West-Goths in Spain. But after hard fighting they captured only the south-eastern corner of the kingdom. Much of the old Western Empire was still in barbarian hands when Justinian died. 

Justinian the reformer

Although impressive, Justinian military conquests did not fulfil his dream of rebuilding the old Roman Empire.  Justinian’s wars were very costly, in both money and lives.  And all the time the Emperor needed extra forces to protect the heart of his empire from the powerful Persians and the peoples beyond the Danube frontier. In the end, his conquests were shortlived. Only a few years after his death most of Italy was overrun by the Lombards. Within a century the foothold in Spain was lost and North Africa was conquered by Arab tribesmen.

​Nowadays Justinian is remembered more as a reformer than as a conqueror. He reformed the tax system so that the empire had a regular and reliable supply of funds and most famously he oversaw a change in the legal system. Over the centuries there had been so many changes in the law that magistrates often did not know what was the correct judgment. 

So Justinian ordered a team of experts to sort out all that was best in the old Roman laws. The result was the great four-part Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law) which is still in use today. This vast work fills over 2,000 closely printed pages in a modern edition. It has influenced the laws of many present-day countries in Europe and the Americas.

​Justinian is also famous for his buildings - especially the magnificent church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople, which still stands and is now a mosque. It took 10,000 men five years to build.  The ceiling was overlaid with pure gold, and sunlight flooding through the huge domed roof lit up richly coloured marble floors and walls. A writer of the time said of Hagia Sophia: ‘Whenever one goes there to pray . . . one’s heart is lifted up to God and finds itself in heaven.’

Emperors ruled at Constantinople for 900 years after Justinian. But none of them tried to re-conquer the West. They were kept busy defending the empire they already had. As contacts with western Europe grew less the old Roman customs disappeared. Before long even the Christianity of the Eastern Empire was different from that of the Roman Catholic Church. The Empire became known as Byzantium - the name of the ancient Greek city which once stood on the site of Constantinople. Certainly its way of life was Greek rather than Roman. In fact Justinian was the last emperor to speak Latin.

Activity 2

Explain why Justinian is considered to be one of the most important Roman emperors. Identify at least three important successes that Justinian was responsible for.

Extension

If you have time, watch this Crash Course episode on the Fall of Rome. It provides a broad overview of events in both east and west that you should understand now. You might even understand some of John Green's jokes.