Studio Aletheia · World Builders Academy
6.2.ESC 6th Grade World Civilizations
Justinian's Empire
Lesson 3.3 · The Byzantine Empire II, Law, Faith, and Reconquest
One Byzantine emperor tried to do it all: rebuild Rome's lost western provinces, rewrite its legal system from scratch, and rebuild its most famous church. Today you weigh the emperor Justinian's reign through sources written by people who both praised and condemned him, and decide for yourself how reliable each account really is.
Learning Targets and Success Criteria
Build the vocabulary and evidence needed to meet standard 6.2.E.
What I will learn
- I can describe Justinian's three major projects as emperor.
- I can explain what the Code of Justinian was and why it mattered.
- I can explain why historians must weigh multiple perspectives when studying a single ruler.
- I can identify bias in a primary source written to praise or criticize a historical figure.
What success looks like
- I name all three of Justinian's major projects: law, building, and reconquest.
- I explain in my own words what the Code of Justinian preserved and organized.
- I identify at least one reason a primary source about Justinian might be biased.
- My exit ticket uses the word perspective accurately.
Analyze multiple perspectives on the increased interactions among and between world societies through a variety of primary and secondary sources.
One reign, told from more than one angle.
These terms will be used throughout the mini-lesson, evidence lab, hands-on activity, journal, and exit challenge.
Justinian I
Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565 CE, known for codifying Roman law, building monumental architecture, and attempting to reconquer the western Roman Empire.
Code of Justinian
A massive compilation of Roman law, ordered by Justinian, that organized centuries of legal rulings into a single, lasting legal system.
Bias
A leaning toward one perspective or interpretation, often shaped by an author's loyalty, position, or purpose in writing.
Multiple Perspectives
The historical practice of comparing several accounts of the same event or person, especially ones that disagree, to build a fuller, more reliable picture.
Where this shows up in the real world.
History is not just something that happened. It is training for how you will read evidence, weigh sources, and make decisions in a career.
Codifying a Legal System
Modern legal codes, including much of Western civil law, trace their organizational structure back to the Code of Justinian, which shaped how legal systems collect and organize rulings to this day.
Cross-Checking Competing Accounts
Journalists routinely compare flattering official statements against critical insider accounts, the same skill historians use when reading a court historian's praise alongside a rival's condemnation of the same ruler.
Praised by One Pen, Condemned by Another
The same court historian who publicly praised Justinian's reign also secretly wrote a scandalous account accusing him and his wife Theodora of corruption.
Justinian I ruled the Byzantine Empire from 527 to 565 CE, a reign historians consider the empire's cultural high point. Justinian pursued three ambitious projects at once. He ordered a massive legal effort to compile and organize centuries of scattered Roman law into a single, coherent system, known today as the Code of Justinian. He carried out monumental building projects across Constantinople, including the rebuilding of the Hagia Sophia as one of the largest and most magnificent churches in the world. And he launched military campaigns to reconquer parts of the western Roman Empire that had fallen to Germanic kingdoms, briefly retaking Italy after a long and costly war fought through the 550s.
Much of what historians know about Justinian's reign comes from a single author: Procopius, a court historian who accompanied Justinian's general Belisarius on campaign. Procopius wrote The Wars and The Buildings, both of which praised Justinian's achievements in detail. But Procopius also secretly wrote a very different account, known as the Anecdota or Secret History, which was not published until long after his death. In it, Procopius accused Justinian and his wife, the empress Theodora, of corruption, cruelty, and abuse of power, painting a picture almost impossible to reconcile with his public writings.
This is exactly the kind of problem historians face constantly: the same eyewitness, writing for different purposes and different audiences, can produce two contradictory accounts of the same ruler. Was Procopius's public praise flattery required to keep his position at court? Was his private criticism an honest release of frustrations he could never say aloud, or exaggerated grievance? Historians cannot simply pick the version they like better. They must ask who benefited from each account, who the intended audience was, and what other evidence, such as surviving buildings, laws, and coins, can help confirm or challenge either version.
Adapted from Studio Aletheia's World Builders Academy curriculum library, drawing on classical and medieval world history resources on the Byzantine Empire and Late Antiquity.
Materials for the evidence lab.
- A. Evidence Cards, provided
- B. Highlighters, 2 colors minimum
- C. Chart paper or notebook paper
- D. A pencil for mapping
- E. Your Evidence Log
Every session: identify the evidence, cite where it came from, connect it to the day's vocabulary, write a one-paragraph explanation.
Weigh the Sources
Practice deciding how much to trust a source based on who wrote it and why.
Build a Two-Column Case File
Practice organizing conflicting evidence about the same historical figure the way a historian would.
Evidence Log
Accountability Checklist
Exit Challenge
Procopius wrote both flattering and damning accounts of the same emperor. Which do you think is more historically useful to study, and why: a source with obvious bias, or no source at all?