Leader Analysis Sheet Essays (500 words) - 1st Millennium

Leader Analysis Sheet Name of Leader: Justinian Lifespan: c. 482 AD - November 15th, 565 AD Title: Justinian the Great Country/region: Byzantine Empire Years in Power: 527 AD - 565 AD (38 Years) Political: Many former Byzantium lands were lost due to invasions. The Western half of the empire was broken off. The capital was moved to Constantinople. Contact and trade is basically cut off entirely from Western Europe. Social: The Byzantine Empire followed its own branch of Christianity, Orthodox Christianity. Orthodox Christianity was entirely cutoff from the papacy and its power. Economic: The byzantine empire had one of largest and wealthiest economies in the world. The economy was mainly influenced by trade with Constantinople being a major trading hub for the whole world. The Byzantine Empire was a bridge between Europe, Asia, Africa, and other Northern Lands. Agriculture was included but development was slow and there was no major production. Justinian was intent on bringing the Byzantine Empire to a Golden Age and making unified, prosperous, and vast. His goals were to construct a well-developed legal code and system, and conquer lost lands. He also aimed to Beatify Constantinople. -Justinian extended the Byzantine Empire dramatically. He extended the empire back into areas that had previously been part of the Western Roman Empire.-Justinian successfully codified Roman Law. He gathered all the laws, rules etc. and collected them as a base for Byantine law.-He constructed the building of the Hagia Sophia, an extremely elegant and beautiful Church that still stands today. Short-Term Effects: Almost immediately upon his accession Justinian inaugurated a policy of restoration of the Roman Empire, the western part of which had been lost in the barbarian invasions of the 5th century. The eastern front of the empire was secured by an "eternal peace" signed with Persia in 532. Internal unrest was crushed by the great general Belisarius. In 533 an imperial army set out against the Vandal kingdom in North Africa, which was reincorporated into the empire in 534. The following year another imperial army attacked the Ostrogoths in Italy; the Ostrogoths, however, resisted annihilation for another 20 years. A third campaign, undertaken against the Visigoths, reconquered southeastern Spain. By the emperor's death most of the former Roman territory around the Mediterranean Sea, except for Gaul and northern Spain, was again part of the empire, despite a resumption of the Persian war in 540 and gradual Slavic infiltration in the Balkans. Long-Term Effects: The centralized empire envisaged by Justinian required a uniform legal system. Therefore an imperial commission headed by the renowned jurist Trebonianus worked for ten years to collect and systematize existing Roman law. Their work was incorporated into the enormous Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law), also called the Justinian Code, promulgated in 534 and kept up to date by the addition of new decrees, or Novellae. This formidable legislative codification still remains the basis for the law of most European countries. Simultaneously with this legal reform, attempts were made to rectify administrative abuses.