Europe in the Middle Ages

by Ierne L. Plunket

It was his hope that he might win the trust and affection of his new subjects, and, though he ruled exactly as he liked, he remained outwardly submissive to the Emperor, writing him humble letters and marking the coinage with the imperial stamp. He frequently consulted the Senate at Rome that, though it had long ago lost any real power, had never ceased to take a nominal share in the government; and when he gave a third of the Italian lands to his own countrymen he allowed Roman officials to make the division.

Theodoric also maintained the laws and customs of Italy and forced the Ostrogoths to respect them too; but his army remained a national bodyguard, and in spite of his efforts at conciliation the two peoples did not mingle. Between them stood the barrier of religious bitterness, for the Ostrogoths were Arians, and, though their ruler was very tolerant in his attitude, the Catholics were always suspicious of his intentions.

On one occasion there had been a riot against the Jews and several synagogues had been burned. Theodoric ordered a collection of money to be made amongst the orthodox Catholics who were responsible, that the buildings might be restored. This command was disobeyed, and when the ring-leaders of the strike were whipped through the streets, popular anger against the Gothic king grew to white heat. He himself changed in character as he became older and showed himself morose and tyrannical. Towards the end of his reign he put to death Boethius, a Roman senator, who had been one of his favourite advisers, but who had dared to defend openly a man whom he himself had condemned.

Boethius was not only a fearless champion of his friends—he was a great scholar who had kept alight the torch of classical learning amid the darkness and horror of invasion. Besides translating some of the works of Aristotle he wrote treatises on logic, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, and made an able defence of the Nicene Creed against Arian attacks. The last and most famous of his works, that for ten centuries men have remembered and loved, was his Consolations of Philosophy, written when death in a most horrible form was already drawing close. Tortured by a cord drawn closely round his forehead, and then beaten with clubs, the philosopher escaped from a life where fortune had dealt with him cruelly. His master survived him by two years, repenting on his death-bed in an agony of remorse the brutal sentence he had meted out.

It is scarcely fair to judge Theodoric by the tyranny of his last days. It is better to recall the glory of his prime, and how ‘in the Western part of the Empire there was no people who refused him homage’. Allied by family ties with the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Franks, he was undoubtedly the greatest of all the barbarians of his age. Had his successors shown a little of his statesmanlike qualities, Ostrogoth and Italian, in spite of their religious differences, might have united to form a single nation, but unfortunately, before twenty years had passed, the kingdom he had founded was destined to disappear.

Theodoric was succeeded by his grandson, a boy who lived only a few years, and then by a worthless nephew, without either royal or statesmanlike qualities. In contrast to this weak dynasty, there ruled at Constantinople an Emperor who possessed in the highest degree the ability and steadfastness of purpose that the times required.

The Emperor Justinian

Justinian was only a peasant by birth, but he had been well educated and took a keen interest not only in questions of law and finance that concerned the government but in theology, music, and architecture. In his manner to his subjects he was friendly though dignified, but there was something unsympathetic in his nature that prevented him from becoming popular. His courtiers regarded his industry with awe, but some professed to believe that he could not spend so many midnight hours at work unless he were an evil spirit not requiring sleep. One writer says that ‘no one ever remembered him young’: yet this serious prince married for love a beautiful actress, Theodora, and dared, in the face of general indignation, to make her his empress. An historian of the time says of Theodora, ‘it were impossible for mere man to describe her comeliness in words or imitate it in art’; yet she was no doll, but took a very definite share in the government, extorting admiration by her dignity even from those who had pretended to despise her.

Justinian’s chief passion was for building, and he spent a great part of his revenue in erecting bridges, baths, forts, and palaces. Most famous of all the architecture of his time was Saint Sophia, ‘the Church of the Holy Wisdom’, that after Constantinople passed into the hands of the Turks became a mosque.

It is not, however, for Saint Sophia that Justinian is chiefly remembered but for the Corpus Juris Civilis, literally ‘the body of Civil Law’, that he published in order that his subjects might know what the Roman law really was. The Corpus Juris Civilis consisted of three parts—the ‘Code’, a collection of decrees made by various emperors; next the ‘Digest’, the decisions of eminent lawyers; and thirdly the ‘Institutes’, an explanation of the principles of Roman law. ‘After thirteen centuries,’ says a modern writer, ‘it stands unsurpassed as a treasury of legal knowledge;’ and all through the Middle Ages men were to look to it for inspiration. Thus it was on the Corpus Juris Civilis that ecclesiastical lawyers based the Canon law that gave to the Pope an emperor’s power over the Church.