Justinian
527-565 A.D.

Anyone interested in the Emperor Justinian’s place in history will have no trouble finding plenty to read about.

Of great interest to people in or associated with the legal profession was Justinian’s tremendous zeal for legal reformation. The Codex Justinianus (code of imperial law), the Institutes (text book for law students), and the Digest of Roman Jurisprudence (ordering and codifying the legal opinions of the Roman jurisconsulti) were all commissioned by Justinian. There is also a body of legal achievement, known since the sixteenth century as the Corpus Juris Civilis, meant to be a unified body of laws. He is the father of all modern legal systems.