Justinian I

"Justinian I (Flavius Anicius Justinianus), the nephew of Justin I, was born at Tauresium in Illyria, the son of a Slavonic peasant, and was originally called Sabbatius. Educated at Constantinople, in 521 Justinian was named consul and in 527 was proclaimed by Justin his colleague in the empire. Justin died the same year and Justinian, who was then proclaimed sole emperor, was crowned along with his wife, Theodora." (source)

When Justinian became ruler of the Byzantine Empire, he ordered to have the preparation of the Corpus Juris Civilis. "These works have become known individually as the Code, which collected the legal pronouncements of the Roman emperors, the Institutes, an elementary student's textbook, and the Digest, by far the largest and most highly prized of the three compilations. The Digest was assembled by a team of sixteen academic lawyers commissioned by Justinian in 533 to cull everything of value from earlier Roman law. It was for centuries the focal point of legal education in the West and remains today an unprecedented collection of the commentaries of Roman jurists on the civil law." (source)

"Justinian reigned at Constantinople from 527 until his death. He recognized that Roman law was in a state of confusion—the no-actresses-for-senators law was a minor problem compared with the obfuscations and contradictions among old laws passed in the republic and early empire, subsequent decrees of the senate, and the writings of jurists who had been given the right to declare what was the law. Justinian therefore commissioned a group of distinguished scholars to come up with an imperial constitution free of contradictions. Following the success of this, he authorized a new commission to bring order into the rest of Roman law, publishing their results in 533. The president of the commission, Tribonian, recognized that an outline of the laws was required whereby future lawyers could learn their first lessons, no longer from ancient fables but from the new vantage point of codified legal learning. The result was the Institutes of Justinan, extracts from which follow. This summary of Roman law in the sixth century provides an insight into the type of humanistic principles that had established themselves in Roman society at this late period of the empire." (source)

"Justinian was anxious to end religious disunity within the empire. The chief theological issue of his day was the persisting Monophysite rejection of the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon (451) regarding the natures of Christ. Since the Monophysite religious dissent was linked with regional unrest, especially in Syria-Palestine and Egypt, the problem had wide political implications. Justinian repeatedly sought to end the dissension, either by some compromise formula or device or by arbitrary pressures. His policies alternated between extremes of conciliation and persecution. At Justinian's behest, the Fifth Ecumenical Council met (553) to ratify some of his measures. Yet, for all his exertions, a resolution of the issues seemed even less attainable at the end of his reign than at the beginning." (source)

"Although ecstatic and hopeful early in his reign, the mood at Constantinople had changed by the end of Justinian’s life to one of angry frustration. Justinian’s funeral pall was embroidered with scenes of his military triumphs in the 530s that must have seemed a grim anachronism to the mourners who laid him to rest." (source)