Lesson 11: The Byzantine Empire and the Justinian Code

Justinian and his Code

The Eastern Roman Empire encompassed Greece, as well as western Asia and northern Africa, where there was more developed agriculture in Egypt and Syria, and many large cities and international trading ports. As a result, the Eastern Roman Empire was economically active and socially stable. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire continued and entered a "golden age".

In 527, Justinian succeeded as Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. In order to stabilize the social order of the empire and ensure the autocratic power of the emperor, he set up a codification commission. In 529, the commission spent six years compiling the decrees issued by the Roman emperors since the beginning of the second century, eliminating the contradictory regulations, and compiling the Justinian Code, as well as the treatises and writings on legal issues by Roman jurists of all times into the Jurisprudence Compendium, and the Jurisprudence Compendium, a guide to legal literature. Later, Justinian ordered the editors to compile the decrees of his own reign into the New Code. These four legal texts are collectively known as the Roman Civil Code.

The Roman Civil Code still recognized slavery, but it improved the status of slaves to a certain extent, as slaves were no longer considered "talking tools" as before. At the end of the 11th century, manuscripts of the Roman Civil Code were found in Italy, and research on the Roman Civil Code began in Western Europe. The Roman Civil Code was regarded as the foundation of European civil law.

The fall of the Byzantine Empire

From the 7th century onwards, the Arabs continued to attack the Byzantine Empire and occupied parts of the empire. After the 9th century, the Byzantine Empire was attacked by several external military powers, and the empire was encroached upon, leaving only the Greek peninsula and the Greek states in the Aegean region in the 11th century.

Long-term foreign wars led to the depletion of the empire's finances, and the Byzantine emperors had to resort to military assistance from the feudal lords of Western Europe. The Western European feudal lords, who had long coveted the lands and wealth of the East, formed crusades. Instead of giving military aid to Byzantium, the Eastern crusaders attacked the Byzantine Empire and occupied Constantinople and most of the Byzantine territories. The Byzantine Empire fell for a time and was soon restored, but its territory was greatly reduced and its power weakened.

At the beginning of the 14th century, the Byzantine Empire was constantly attacked by the new Ottoman Turks, and in 1453, the Ottoman Turks broke Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire finally fell.

The Byzantine Empire was a large empire that spanned Europe, Asia and Africa. It incorporated Christianity, classical Greek and Roman cultural traditions, and Eastern cultural elements from West Asia and North Africa, creating a unique Byzantine culture that had a significant impact on the world. It preserved a large number of ancient Greek and Roman texts, which provided rich spiritual nutrition for the later Renaissance in Western Europe. The Byzantine culture had an even greater influence on the culture of Eastern Europe. The Cyrillic alphabet created by Byzantine priests in the 9th century was the origin of the alphabets of Russia, Serbia and other peoples.

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