Transcript File justinian and the byzantium empirex

Eastern Rome was still thriving, while Western Rome
was becoming weak.
Emperor Constantine rebuilt the old port city of
Byzantium.
Could respond to danger of the Germanic tribes.
Close to rich eastern provinces.
Renamed city Constantinople in 330 and made it the
capital of the empire and the New Rome had begun.
The rulers of the Byzantine Empire still
considered themselves Roman emperors.
Byzantine Emperors had absolute power, they
were heads of the state and the church.
Politics were brutal and Emperors were
always at risk of being assassinated. Out of
88 emperors 29 died violently and 13
abandoned the throne.
In 395, East officially cut ties with the troubled
West.
In 527, Justinian succeeded his uncle to the throne
of the eastern empire.
Born a peasant in what is now northern
Yugoslavia (Outsider).
Wanted claim to head of the whole Roman
Empire (Eastern and Western).
Known to be “deceitful, devious, false, hypocritical,
two-faced, cruel, skilled in dissembling his though,
never moved to tears by either joy or pain… a liar
always.”
After 16 years of fighting Justinian's armies won
control of almost all of Italy and parts of Spain; he
ruled almost all of what had been the Roman Empire.
Justinian wanted to have a set of laws to help
control such a large and complex empire.
The Justinian Code was used to decide legal
questions and regulated the whole of Byzantine life.
A panel of 10 legal experts worked for 5 years,
combing through 400 years of Roman law to create a
uniform set of laws that consisted of four works
known as Justinian Code.
1. Code- 5,000 Roman laws.
2. Digest- quoted and summarized opinions of
Rome’s greatest legal thinkers about the laws.
3. Institutes- textbook that told law students how
to use the laws.
4. Novellae (New Laws)- Presented legislation
passed after 534.
As the Roman empire grew larger the church began
to grow as well. The center of the Church in the west
was Rome, the center of the church in the east was
Constantinople.
The doctrines taught in eastern/western Rome were
slightly different and grew more different as the
years passed.
In 1054 the differences finally led to an official split
and we end up with two different churches: The
Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Eastern
Orthodox church in the East
The middle ages is the time period
between 500-1500.
The Western Roman Empire falls into
the middle ages because of:
The disruption of trade.
The downfall of cities.
Population shifts.
The decline of learning.
Loss of a common language.
As the Roman Empire fell the Germanic tribes
began to set up small kingdoms throughout western
Europe.
In 771 Charlemagne is able to take control and
builds an empire greater then any known since the
fall of Rome.
When Charlemagne dies his empire is divided and
Western Europe again is divided into many kingdoms.