Justinian, whose best-known work is as a codifier and legislator, greatly stimulates legal studies: in 528, he had set up a commission to produce a new code of imperial enactments or constitutions, published in 529 as the Codex Constitutionum.

Justinian had ordered the preparation of a collection of Roman law, called the Corpus Juris Civilis (”Body of Civil Law”), the mass of Roman legal material developed over a millennium being generally unavailable to those who needed it, and rife with internal contradictions.

Justinian will appoint three committees, under the general chairmanship of his chief legal advisor, Tribonian, to collect and edit the legal material.

The first committee gathers all the laws that have emanated from the emperors themselves.

These form the “Justinian Code,” published in twelve books in 529 and containing mainly public, administrative, and criminal law.