CLEP Western Civ I

Answer: C - Justinian’s reign was defined by his attempts to reconquer the western faction of the classical Roman Empire and his creation of the Code of Civil Law (or Corpus Juris Civilis). The Code of Civil Law was a three-part, unified body of legislation that assembled centuries of previously unwritten Roman legal thought and imperial statutes and gave it the force of law. Justinian was the emperor of the Byzantine Empire, formerly known as the Eastern Roman Empire. He successfully reacquired some of the land that was previously in the Western Roman Empire, though most of those reacquisitions were eventually lost again. (Justinian did increase the revenue for the empire significantly, but the government was merit-based, not drawn strictly from the aristocracy. He did not participate in the First Crusade, create the first feudal manor or organize the foundation of the Catholic Church. Justinian did successfully engage in seafaring to expand his territory. The outbreak of bubonic plague in 954- “the Plague of Justinian” not the Black Death- caused much of his empire’s momentum to cease, and Byzantium subsequently experienced several centuries of decline.)