Law · 527–565 CE

Justinian's law code and reconquests

Constantinople (Istanbul, Türkiye)

The Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) had a commission led by Tribonian gather centuries of Roman law into the Code (529, revised 534), the Digest and the Institutes (533), later called the Corpus Juris Civilis.

After the Nika riots of 532 burned the old church, he rebuilt Hagia Sophia, completed in 537, and his generals retook North Africa from the Vandals (533–534), Italy from the Ostrogoths (535–554) and part of southern Spain. From 541 plague, caused by the same bacterium as the later Black Death, swept the Mediterranean.

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