After the fall of Rome, one ruler – Justinian I, dreamed of putting the Empire back together through rules as well as war. When he took over the throne in 527 CE, the Western part of the Roman Empire had already fallen. Unfortunately, the Eastern Roman Empire that he ruled also had a messy legal system.
For nearly a thousand years, the Romans had piled up ancient decrees and senate rulings until they no longer made sense. Judges often got lost in thousands of scrolls while trying to find a single correct rule for a case, thereby making the whole judicial system largely ineffective. Justinian decided to commission a new coherent set of rules to solve the problem. This entire collection was later titled the Corpus Juris Civilis, which includes the famous Codex Justinianus (the Justinian Code).
It Clarified Local Laws
In 528 CE, Justinian I chose a special team of ten legal experts to create the initial legal code. The men worked with incredible speed and finished the first part of their project in only fourteen months. They called it the Codex Justinianus and published it in April 529 CE as the official law of the land. The work instantly simplified the duties of magistrates and governors across the empire.
Soon after the release of this first collection, however, Justinian realized that the opinions of ancient lawyers were just as messy as the imperial laws. In 530 CE, he asked Tribonian, who had led the first team, to lead a new group of scholars to fix the mess. The scholars examined over 3 million lines of text to find the most useful legal ideas. Thus, the Digest (or the Pandects) was created in 533 CE. It consisted of 50 different books that covered every possible legal problem from a stolen pig to a dispute over a dowry.
The Digest soon became the ultimate guide for every law expert in the Empire. The Institutes, a series of books related to the laws, were created in 533 to serve as a textbook for law students. In the years that followed, Justinian continued to issue new individual laws known as the Novels to address emerging issues. While these were not published in one official book during his lifetime, they were later added to the legal collection.
It Changed Family and Property Ownership Rules
The Code changed how people owned things in the 6th century. Ancient Roman systems made transferring property a complex process that involved many witnesses and specific ceremonies. Justinian officially ended the old requirements by focusing on the intent of the buyer and the seller. Agreements that were based on malicious intent typically led to penalties.
In terms of family law, the Code gave more rights to women regarding their dowries. For instance, a husband would have to return his wife’s dowry if he wished to divorce her. In much the same way, the law made it much harder for a father to sell his children into slavery, as the emperor wanted to protect the dignity of families. That said, the system remained very strict when it came to upholding social classes and status, and so many people still found themselves stuck in the lower peasant worker class for life.
It Gave More Powers to the State and the Church
Under Justinian I, Roman state authority grew stronger. Before his reign, judicial power had already begun shifting away from the Senate and independent experts to the emperor. But when Justinian took over, he ensured every legal decision came from the central administration. Consequently, as the empire expanded its influence and fought to reclaim territories, people in all the territories followed the same statutes.
Religion also became a matter of state law under the new laws issued by Justinian. He believed that the survival of the empire depended a lot on the unity of the masses under Christian faith. As a result, laws were enacted to punish people who disagreed with the official doctrine of the church. The state also gained the power to seize the property of those who were labeled as heretics. Under the new legal framework, the government and the church functioned as one powerful force.
