What did Justinian do in terms of Roman law?
Following the death of Emperor Theodosius in 395 his two sons were declared joint emperors. One was nominally responsible for the east and one for the west. While the two men were theoretically supposed to be joint rulers over a single empire, in reality the two halves were never again to be united. When Justinian came to power in 527 CE as ruler of the eastern half, one of his aims was to update and codify all of the laws. As time passes society changes and laws that served one generation well might not work for the next. New laws were passed and new interpretations were made, but this had all been done on an ad hoc basis and by the time Justinian came to power the law was in a bit of a mess. The new Emperor was determined to fix this by gathering all of the laws into one place. The intent was not to create anything new, but to gather together all of the laws that still applied, delete the ones that did not and eliminate contradictions. The result was a document two or three times the
