Vitruvius
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio known as Vitruvius, was a Roman author, civil engineer and military engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled De architectura. His discussion of perfect proportion in architecture and the human body led to the famous Renaissance drawing by Leonardo da Vinci of Vitruvian Man. By his own description Vitruvius served as an artilleryman, the third class of arms in the military offices, he served as a senior officer of artillery in charge of doctores ballistarum and libratores who operated the machines. Little is known about Vitruvius' life. Most inferences about him are extracted from his only surviving work De Architectura, his first name Marcus and his cognomen Pollio are uncertain. Marcus Cetius Faventinus writes of "Vitruvius Polio aliique auctores". An inscription in Verona, which names a Lucius Vitruvius Cordo, an inscription from Thilbilis in North Africa, which names a Marcus Vitruvius Mamurra have been suggested as evidence that Vitruvius and Mamurra were from the same family.
Neither association, however, is borne out by De Architectura, nor by the little, known of Mamurra. Vitruvius was a military engineer, or a praefect architectus armamentarius of the apparitor status group, he is mentioned in Pliny the Elder's table of contents for Naturalis Historia, in the heading for mosaic techniques. Frontinus refers to "Vitruvius the architect" in his late 1st-century work De aquaeductu. Born a free Roman citizen, by his own account, Vitruvius served in the Roman army under Caesar with the otherwise poorly identified Marcus Aurelius, Publius Minidius, Gnaeus Cornelius; these names vary depending on the edition of De architectura. Publius Minidius is written as Publius Numidicus and Publius Numidius, speculated as the same Publius Numisius inscribed on the Roman Theatre at Heraclea; as an army engineer he specialized in the construction of ballista and scorpio artillery war machines for sieges. It is speculated; the locations where he served can be reconstructed from, for example, descriptions of the building methods of various "foreign tribes".
Although he describes places throughout De Architectura, he does not say. His service included north Africa, Hispania and Pontus. To place the role of Vitruvius the military engineer in context, a description of "The Prefect of the camp" or army engineer is quoted here as given by Flavius Vegetius Renatus in The Military Institutions of the Romans: The Prefect of the camp, though inferior in rank to the, had a post of no small importance; the position of the camp, the direction of the entrenchments, the inspection of the tents or huts of the soldiers and the baggage were comprehended in his province. His authority extended over the sick, the physicians who had the care of them, he had the charge of providing carriages and the proper tools for sawing and cutting wood, digging trenches, raising parapets, sinking wells and bringing water into the camp. He had the care of furnishing the troops with wood and straw, as well as the rams, onagri and all the other engines of war under his direction; this post was always conferred on an officer of great skill and long service, and, capable of instructing others in those branches of the profession in which he had distinguished himself.
At various locations described by Vitruvius and sieges occurred. He is the only source for the siege of Larignum in 56 BC. Of the battlegrounds of the Gallic War there are references to: the siege and massacre of the 40,000 residents at Avaricum in 52 BC; the broken siege at Gergovia in 52 BC. The circumvallation and Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, and the siege of Uxellodunum in 51 BC. These are all sieges of large Gallic oppida. Of the sites involved in Caesar's civil war, we find the Siege of Massilia in 49 BC, the Battle of Dyrrhachium of 48 BC, the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, the Battle of Zela of 47 BC and the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC in Caesar's African campaign. A legion that fits the same sequence of locations is the Legio VI Ferrata, of which ballista would be an auxiliary unit. Known for his writings, Vitruvius was himself an architect. In Roman times architecture was a broader subject than at present including the modern fields of architecture, construction management, construction engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, materials engineering, mechanical engineering, military engineering and urban planning.
Frontinus mentions him in connection with the standard sizes of pipes. He is credited as father of architectural acoustics for describing the technique of echeas placement in theaters; the only building, that we know Vitruvius to have worked on is one he tells us about, a basi
Winchester Cathedral
Winchester Cathedral is a cathedral of the Church of England in Winchester, England. It is one of the largest cathedrals in Europe, with the greatest overall length of any Gothic cathedral. Dedicated to the Holy Trinity, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, before the Reformation, Saint Swithun, it is the seat of the Bishop of Winchester and centre of the Diocese of Winchester; the cathedral is a Grade I listed building. The cathedral was founded in 642 on a site to the north of the present one; this building became known as the Old Minster. It became part of a monastic settlement in 971. Saint Swithun was buried near the Old Minster and in it, before being moved to the new Norman cathedral. So-called mortuary chests said to contain the remains of Saxon kings such as King Eadwig of England, first buried in the Old Minster, his wife Ælfgifu, are in the present cathedral; the Old Minster was demolished in 1093 after the consecration of its successor. In 1079, Bishop of Winchester, began work on a new cathedral.
Much of the limestone used to build the structure was brought across from quarries around Binstead, Isle of Wight. Nearby Quarr Abbey draws its name from these workings, as do several nearby places such as Stonelands and Stonepitts; the remains of the Roman trackway used to transport the blocks are still evident across the fairways of the Ryde Golf Club, where the stone was hauled from the quarries to the hythe at the mouth of Binstead Creek, thence by barge across the Solent and up to Winchester. The building was consecrated in 1093. On 8 April of that year, according to the Annals of Winchester, "in the presence of all the bishops and abbots of England, the monks came with the highest exultation and glory from the old minster to the new one: on the Feast of S. Swithun they went in procession from the new minster to the old one and brought thence S. Swithun's shrine and placed it with honour in the new buildings, on the following day Walkelin's men first began to pull down the old minster."A substantial amount of the fabric of Walkelin's building, including crypt and the basic structure of the nave, survives.
The original crossing tower, collapsed in 1107, an accident blamed by the cathedral's medieval chroniclers on the burial of the dissolute William Rufus beneath it in 1100. Its replacement, which survives today, is still with round-headed windows, it is a squat, square structure, 50 feet wide, but rising only 35 feet above the ridge of the transept roof. The Tower is 150 feet tall. After the consecration of Godfrey de Luci as bishop in 1189, a retrochoir was added in the Early English style; the next major phase of rebuilding was not until the mid-14th century, under bishops Edington and Wykeham. Edingdon removed the two westernmost bays of the nave, built a new west front and began the remodelling of the nave. Under William of Wykeham the Romanesque nave was transformed, recased in Caen stone and remodelled in the Perpendicular style, with its internal elevation divided into two, rather than the previous three, storeys; the wooden ceilings were replaced with stone vaults. Wykeham's successor, Henry of Beaufort carried out fewer alterations, adding only a chantry on the south side of the retrochoir, although work on the nave may have continued through his episcopy.
His successor, William of Waynflete, built another chantry in a corresponding position on the north side. Under Peter Courtenay and Thomas Langton, there was more work. De Luci's Lady chapel was lengthened, the Norman side aisles of the presbytery replaced. In 1525, Richard Foxe added the side screens of the presbytery, which he gave a wooden vault. With its progressive extensions, the east end is now about 110 feet beyond that of Walkelin's building. King Henry VIII seized control of the Catholic Church in England and declared himself head of the Church of England; the Benedictine foundation, the Priory of Saint Swithun, was dissolved. The priory surrendered to the king in 1539; the next year a new chapter was formed, the last prior, William Basyng, was appointed dean. The monastic buildings, including the cloister and chapter house, were demolished during the 1560–1580 tenure of the reformist bishop Robert Horne; the Norman choir screen, having fallen into a state of decay, was replaced in 1637–40 by a new one, designed by Inigo Jones.
It was in a classical style, with bronze figures by Hubert le Sueur of James I and Charles I in niches. It was removed by when its style was felt inappropriate in an otherwise medieval building; the central bay, with its archway, is now in the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge. This stone structure was removed in the 1870s to make way for a wooden one designed by George Gilbert Scott, who modelled it on the canopies of the choir stalls of the monks. Scott's west-facing screen has been much criticised, although the carving is of superlative workmanship and replicates the earlier, albeit finer, carving of the early 14th century east-facing return stalls on to which it backs; the displaced bronze statues of the Stuart kings were moved to the west end of the Cathedral, standing in niches on each side of the central door. Scott's work was otherwise conservative, he moved the lectern to the north side of the quire beside the pulpit, facing west, where it remained for a century before returning to its present central position, now facing east.
Twentiet
Queen of Heaven
Queen of Heaven is a title given to Mary, mother of Jesus, by Christians of the Roman Catholic Church, to some extent, in Anglicanism, some Lutheran churches such as the Church of Sweden and Eastern Orthodoxy. The title is a consequence of the First Council of Ephesus in the fifth century, in which Mary was proclaimed "Theotokos", a title rendered in Latin as Mater Dei, in English "Mother of God"; the Catholic teaching on this subject is expressed in the papal encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam, issued by Pope Pius XII. It states that Mary is called Queen of Heaven because her son, Jesus Christ, is the king of Israel and heavenly king of the universe; the title “Queen of Heaven” has long been a Catholic tradition, included in prayers and devotional literature, seen in Western art in the subject of the Coronation of the Virgin, from the High Middle Ages, long before it was given a formal definition status by the Church. Queen of Heaven is one of many Queen titles used of mother of Jesus; the title derived in part from the ancient Catholic teaching that Mary, at the end of her earthly life, was bodily and spiritually assumed into heaven, that she is there honored as Queen.
Pius XII explained on the theological reasons for her title of Queen in a radio message to Fatima of May 13, 1946, Bendito seja: He, the Son of God, reflects on His heavenly Mother the glory, the majesty and the dominion of His kingship, having been associated to the King of Martyrs in the... work of human Redemption as Mother and cooperator, she remains forever associated to Him, with a unlimited power, in the distribution of the graces which flow from the Redemption. Jesus is King throughout all eternity by nature and by right of conquest: through Him, with Him, subordinate to Him, Mary is Queen by grace, by divine relationship, by right of conquest, by singular choice. In his 1954 encyclical Ad caeli reginam, Pius XII asserts that Mary deserves the title because she is Mother of God, because she is associated as the New Eve with Jesus' redemptive work, because of her preeminent perfection and because of her intercessory power. Ad caeli reginam states that the main principle on which the royal dignity of Mary rests is her Divine Motherhood....
So with complete justice St. John Damascene could write: "When she became Mother of the Creator, she became Queen of every creature.". In the Hebrew Bible, under some Davidic kings, the gebirah, the "Great Lady" the Mother of the King, held great power as advocate with the king. In 1 Kings 2:20, Solomon said to his Mother Bathsheba, seated on a throne at his right, "Make your request, for I will not refuse you." William G. Most sees here a sort of type of Mary. In the New Testament, the title has several biblical sources. At the Annunciation, the archangel Gabriel announces that "... will be great, will be called the Son of the Most High. He will rule over the house of Jacob forever and his reign will be without end." The biblical precedent in ancient Israel is. Mary's queenship is a share in Jesus’ kingship; the Roman Catholic Church views Mary as the woman clothed with the sun in the Book of Revelation 12:1–3: "A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.
She was pregnant and cried out in pain. Another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads." The Church accepts Revelation 12 as a reference to Mary and the Church as a three-fold symbolism through the Book of Isaiah and affirms Mary as the mother of Jesus as the prophetic fulfilment described in Revelation 12. In the Hebrew Bible, the term "queen of heaven" appears in a context unrelated to Mary; the prophet Jeremiah writing circa 628 BC refers to a "queen of heaven" in chapters 7 and 44 of the Book of Jeremiah when he scolds the people for having "sinned against the Lord" due to their idolatrous practices of burning incense, making cakes, pouring out drink offerings to her. This title was given to Asherah, a Caananite idol and goddess worshipped in ancient Israel and Judah. For a discussion of "queen of heaven" in the Hebrew Bible, see Queen of heaven. In the fourth century St. Ephrem called Mary "Lady" and "Queen". Church fathers and doctors continued to use the title.
A text coming from Origen gives her the title domina, the feminine form of Latin dominus, Lord. That same title appears in many other early writers, e.g. Jerome, Peter Chrysologus; the first Mariological definition and basis for the title of Mary Queen of Heaven developed at the Council of Ephesus, where Mary was defined to be the Mother of God. The Council fathers approved this version against the opinion, that Mary is "only" the mother of Jesus. Nobody had participated in the life of her son more, than Mary; the word "Queen" is common after the sixth century. Hymns of the 11th to 13th centuries address Mary as queen: “Hail, Holy Queen,” “Hail, Queen of Heaven,” “Queen of Heaven.” The Dominican rosary and the Franciscan crown as well as numerous invocations in Mary’s litany celebrate her queenship. For centuries she has been invoked as the Queen of heaven, she is invoked in the Litany of Loreto as: Queen of the Angels, Queen of Patriarchs, Queen of Prophets, Queen of Apostles, Queen of Martyrs, Queen of Confe
Peterborough Cathedral
Peterborough Cathedral, properly the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew – known as Saint Peter's Cathedral in the United Kingdom – is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Peterborough, dedicated to Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Andrew, whose statues look down from the three high gables of the famous West Front. Although it was founded in the Anglo-Saxon period, its architecture is Norman, following a rebuilding in the 12th century. With Durham and Ely Cathedrals, it is one of the most important 12th-century buildings in England to have remained intact, despite extensions and restoration. Peterborough Cathedral is known for its imposing Early English Gothic West Front which, with its three enormous arches, is without architectural precedent and with no direct successor; the appearance is asymmetrical, as one of the two towers that rise from behind the façade was never completed, but this is only visible from a distance. The original church, known as "Medeshamstede", was founded in the reign of the Anglo-Saxon King Peada of the Middle Angles in about 655 AD, as one of the first centres of Christianity in central England.
The monastic settlement with which the church was associated lasted at least until 870, when it was destroyed by Vikings. In an alcove of the New Building, an extension of the eastern end, lies an ancient stone carving: the Hedda Stone; this medieval carving of 12 monks, six on each side, commemorates the destruction of the Monastery and the death of the Abbot and Monks when the area was sacked by the Vikings in 864. The Hedda Stone was carved sometime after the raid, when the monastery slipped into decline. In the mid-10th century monastic revival a Benedictine Abbey was created and endowed in 966, principally by Athelwold, Bishop of Winchester, from what remained of the earlier church, with "a basilica there furbished with suitable structures of halls, enriched with surrounding lands" and more extensive buildings which saw the aisle built out to the west with a second tower added; the original central tower was, retained. It was dedicated to St Peter and surrounded by a palisade, called a burgh, hence the town surrounding the abbey was named Peter-burgh.
The community was further revived in 972 by Archbishop of Canterbury. This newer church had as its major focal point a substantial western tower with a "Rhenish helm" and was constructed of ashlars. Only a small section of the foundations of the Anglo-Saxon church remain beneath the south transept but there are several significant artefacts, including Anglo-Saxon carvings such as the Hedda Stone, from the earlier building. In 2008, Anglo-Saxon grave markers were reported to have been found by workmen repairing a wall in the cathedral precincts; the grave markers are said to date to the 11th century, belonged to "townsfolk". Although damaged during the struggle between the Norman invaders and local folk-hero, Hereward the Wake, it was repaired and continued to thrive until destroyed by an accidental fire in 1116; this event necessitated the building of a new church in the Norman style, begun by Abbot John de Sais on 8 March 1118. By 1193, the building was completed to the western end of the Nave, including the central tower and the decorated wooden ceiling of the nave.
The ceiling, completed between 1230 and 1250, still survives. It is unique in one of only four such ceilings in the whole of Europe, it has been over-painted twice, once in 1745 in 1834, but still retains the character and style of the original. The church was built of Barnack limestone from quarries on its own land, it was paid annually for access to these quarries by the builders of Ely Cathedral and Ramsey Abbey in thousands of eels. Cathedral historians believe that part of the placing of the church in the location it is in is due to the easy ability to transfer quarried stones by river and to the existing site allowing it to grow without being relocated. After completing the Western transept and adding the Great West Front Portico in 1237, the medieval masons switched over to the new Gothic style. Apart from changes to the windows, the insertion of a porch to support the free-standing pillars of the portico and the addition of a "new" building at the east end around the beginning of the 16th century, the structure of the building remains as it was on completion 800 years ago.
The completed building was consecrated in 1238 by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, within whose diocese it fell. The trio of arches forming the Great West Front, the defining image of Peterborough Cathedral, is unrivalled in medieval architecture; the line of spires behind it, topping an unprecedented four towers, evolved for more practical reasons. Chief amongst them was the wish to retain the earlier Norman towers, which became obsolete when the Gothic front was added. Instead of being demolished and replaced with new stretches of wall, these old towers were retained and embellished with cornices and other gothic decor, while two new towers were added to create a continuous frontage; the Norman tower was rebuilt in the Decorated Gothic style in about 1350–1380 with two tiers of Romanesque windows combined into a single set of Gothic windows, with the turreted cap and pinnacles removed and replaced by battlements. Between 1496 and 1508, the Presbytery roof was replaced and the "New Building", a rectangular building built around the end of the Norman eastern apse, with Perpendicular fan vaulting
Hennin
The hennin was a headdress in the shape of a cone or "steeple", or truncated cone worn in the late Middle Ages by European women of the nobility. They were most common in Lebanon, Syria and France, but elsewhere at the English courts, in Northern Europe and Poland, they are little seen in Italy. It is unclear what styles the word hennin described at the time, though it is recorded as being used in French in 1428 before the conical style appeared; the word does not appear in English until the 19th century. The term is therefore used by some writers on costume for other female head-dresses of the period; these appear from about 1430 onwards after the mid-century only among aristocratic women, though spreading more especially in the truncated form. The hennin was 30 to 45 cm high, but might be higher, as much as 80 cm according to some sources; the tops of some of these conical hats were pointed while others were truncated, ending in a flat top. It was accompanied by a veil, formally termed a cointoise, that emerged from the top of the cone and was allowed to fall onto the woman's shoulders or to the ground, or was pulled forward over the hennin reaching over the woman's face.
The hennin was worn tilted backward at an angle. It was made of light material card or a wire mesh over which a light fabric was fixed, although little is known of the details of their construction. There was a cloth lappet, or "cornet" in French, in front of the hennin covering part of the brow, sometimes falling onto the shoulders to either side. There is often a "frontlet" or short loop seen on the forehead, to adjust the hennin forward, even to hold it on in wind, it was fashionable to shave the forehead to raise the hairlines. The hair was tied on the scalp and hidden inside the cone; however some images show long hair worn loose behind the hennin. Nowadays, the hennin forms part of the costume of the stereotypical fairy tale princess. There are some manuscript illuminations that show princesses or queens wearing small crowns either round the brim or at the top of the hennin. Various writers on costume history use hennin to cover a variety of different styles. All agree that the steeple-cone style was a hennin, the truncated versions, many include the heart-shaped open-centred fabric tubes of the earlier part of the century.
Some use the term to cover beehive-shaped fabric head-coverings of the mid-century. Others use it for the head-dresses divided to right and left of the early part of the century, such as those in which Christine de Pisan is depicted. In some of these only white cloth is visible, but in examples worn by aristocrats rich fabric can be seen through translucent veils; some use it for the horned hairstyle with a wimple on top. The Chronique of Enguerrand de Monstrelet records that in 1428, in what seems to be the first record of the term "hennin", the radical Carmelite friar Thomas Conecte railed against extravagant headdresses of......the noble ladies, all others, who dressed their heads in so ridiculous a manner, who spent such large sums on such luxuries of fashion. Thomas urged street boys to chase after such ladies and pluck off their headdresses, crying "Au hennin!" granting indulgences to those who did so, although as so in medieval documentary records, no clue as to the form of the "hennins" is given.
Based on the evidence from visual records, they were not conical head-dresses, which are first seen later. The Catalan poet Gabriel Mòger mocked the "tall deformed hat", popular with Majorcan women of the time. 1400–1500 in fashion Tantur Capuchon Pointed hat Boucher, François: 20,000 Years of Fashion, Harry Abrams, 1966. Kohler, Carl: A History of Costume, Dover Publications reprint, 1963, ISBN 0-486-21030-8 Laver, James: The Concise History of Costume and Fashion, Abrams, 1979 Payne, Blanche: History of Costume from the Ancient Egyptians to the Twentieth Century, Harper & Row, 1965. No ISBN for this edition. 133, SCA monograph series Images of Burgundian conical hennins Constructing the Headdresses of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, paper by Marie Vibbert, Known World Costume Symposium Proceedings. Coiffures féminines — Le Hennin Burgundian wedding c.1470, from the Getty, with a great variety of head-dresses
Visigoths
The Visigoths were the western branches of the nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples referred to collectively as the Goths. These tribes flourished and spread throughout the late Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, or what is known as the Migration Period; the Visigoths emerged from earlier Gothic groups who had invaded the Roman Empire beginning in 376 and had defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Relations between the Romans and the Visigoths were variable, alternately warring with one another and making treaties when convenient; the Visigoths invaded Italy under Alaric I and sacked Rome in 410. After the Visigoths sacked Rome, they began settling down, first in southern Gaul and in Hispania, where they founded the Visigothic Kingdom and maintained a presence from the 5th to the 8th centuries AD; the Visigoths first settled in southern Gaul as foederati to the Romans – a relationship established in 418. However, they soon fell out with their Roman hosts and established their own kingdom with its capital at Toulouse.
They next extended their authority into Hispania at the expense of the Vandals. In 507, their rule in Gaul was ended by the Franks under Clovis I, who defeated them in the Battle of Vouillé. After that, the Visigoth kingdom was limited to Hispania, they never again held territory north of the Pyrenees other than Septimania. A small, elite group of Visigoths came to dominate the governance of that region at the expense of those who had ruled there in the Byzantine province of Spania and the Kingdom of the Suebi. In or around 589, the Visigoths under Reccared I converted from Arianism to Nicene Christianity adopting the culture of their Hispano-Roman subjects, their legal code, the Visigothic Code abolished the longstanding practice of applying different laws for Romans and Visigoths. Once legal distinctions were no longer being made between Romani and Gothi, they became known collectively as Hispani. In the century that followed, the region was dominated by the Councils of the episcopacy. In 711 or 712, an invading force of Arabs and Berbers defeated the Visigoths in the Battle of Guadalete.
Their king and many members of their governing elite were killed, their kingdom collapsed. During their governance of Hispania, the Visigoths built several churches, they left many artifacts, which have been discovered in increasing numbers by archaeologists in recent times. The Treasure of Guarrazar of votive crowns and crosses is the most spectacular, they founded the only new cities in western Europe from the fall of the Western half of the Roman Empire until the rise of the Carolingian dynasty. Many Visigothic names are still in use in modern Portuguese, their most notable legacy, was the Visigothic Code, which served, among other things, as the basis for court procedure in most of Christian Iberia until the Late Middle Ages, centuries after the demise of the kingdom. Contemporaneous references to the Gothic tribes use the terms "Vesi", "Ostrogothi", "Thervingi", "Greuthungi". Most scholars have concluded that the terms "Vesi" and "Tervingi" were both used to refer to one particular tribe, while the terms "Ostrogothi" and "Greuthungi" were used to refer to another.
Herwig Wolfram points out that while primary sources list all four names, whenever they mention two different tribes, they always refer either to "the Vesi and the Ostrogothi" or to "the Tervingi and the Greuthungi", they never pair them up in any other combination. This conclusion is supported by Jordanes, who identified the Visigoth kings from Alaric I to Alaric II as the heirs of the 4th century Tervingian king Athanaric, the Ostrogoth kings from Theoderic the Great to Theodahad as the heirs of the Greuthungi king Ermanaric. In addition, the Notitia Dignitatum equates the Vesi with the Tervingi in a reference to the years 388–391; the earliest sources for each of the four names are contemporaneous. The first recorded reference to "the Tervingi" is in a eulogy of the emperor Maximian, delivered in or shortly after 291 and traditionally ascribed to Claudius Mamertinus, it says that the "Tervingi, another division of the Goths", joined with the Taifali to attack the Vandals and Gepidae. The first recorded reference to "the Greuthungi" is by Ammianus Marcellinus, writing no earlier than 392 and later than 395, recounting the words of a Tervingian chieftain, attested as early as 376.
The first known use of the term "Ostrogoths" is in a document dated September 392 from Milan. Wolfram notes that "Vesi" and "Ostrogothi" were terms each tribe used to boastfully describe itself and argues that "Tervingi" and "Greuthungi" were geographical identifiers each tribe used to describe the other; this would explain why the latter terms dropped out of use shortly after 400, when the Goths were displaced by the Hunnic invasions. As an example of this geographical naming practice, Wolfram cites an account by Zosimus of a group of people living north of the Danube who called themselves "the Scythians" but were called "the Greutungi" by members of a different tribe living
Justinian I
Justinian I, traditionally known as Justinian the Great and Saint Justinian the Great in the Eastern Orthodox Church, was the Eastern Roman emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the historical Roman Empire. Justinian's rule constitutes a distinct epoch in the history of the Later Roman empire, his reign is marked by the ambitious but only realized renovatio imperii, or "restoration of the Empire"; because of his restoration activities, Justinian has sometimes been known as the "last Roman" in mid 20th century historiography. This ambition was expressed by the partial recovery of the territories of the defunct Western Roman Empire, his general, swiftly conquered the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa. Subsequently, Belisarius and other generals conquered the Ostrogothic kingdom, restoring Dalmatia, Sicily and Rome to the empire after more than half a century of rule by the Ostrogoths; the prefect Liberius reclaimed the south of the Iberian peninsula, establishing the province of Spania.
These campaigns re-established Roman control over the western Mediterranean, increasing the Empire's annual revenue by over a million solidi. During his reign, Justinian subdued the Tzani, a people on the east coast of the Black Sea that had never been under Roman rule before, he engaged the Sasanian Empire in the east during Kavad I's reign, again during Khosrow I's. A still more resonant aspect of his legacy was the uniform rewriting of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis, still the basis of civil law in many modern states, his reign marked a blossoming of Byzantine culture, his building program yielded such masterpieces as the church of Hagia Sophia. Justinian was born in Tauresium, around 482. A native speaker of Latin, he came from a peasant family believed to have been of Illyro-Roman or Thraco-Roman origins; the cognomen Iustinianus, which he took is indicative of adoption by his uncle Justin. During his reign, he founded Justiniana Prima not far from his birthplace, which today is in South East Serbia.
His mother was the sister of Justin. Justin, in the imperial guard before he became emperor, adopted Justinian, brought him to Constantinople, ensured the boy's education; as a result, Justinian was well educated in jurisprudence and Roman history. Justinian served for some time with the Excubitors but the details of his early career are unknown. Chronicler John Malalas, who lived during the reign of Justinian, tells of his appearance that he was short, fair skinned, curly haired, round faced and handsome. Another contemporary chronicler, compares Justinian's appearance to that of tyrannical Emperor Domitian, although this is slander; when Emperor Anastasius died in 518, Justin was proclaimed the new emperor, with significant help from Justinian. During Justin's reign, Justinian was the emperor's close confidant. Justinian showed much ambition, it has been thought that he was functioning as virtual regent long before Justin made him associate emperor on 1 April 527, although there is no conclusive evidence of this.
As Justin became senile near the end of his reign, Justinian became the de facto ruler. Justinian was appointed consul in 521 and commander of the army of the east. Upon Justin's death on 1 August 527, Justinian became the sole sovereign; as a ruler, Justinian showed great energy. He was known as "the emperor" on account of his work habits, he seems to have been amiable and easy to approach. Around 525, he married Theodora, in Constantinople, she was by some twenty years his junior. In earlier times, Justinian could not have married her owing to her class, but his uncle, Emperor Justin I, had passed a law allowing intermarriage between social classes. Theodora would become influential in the politics of the Empire, emperors would follow Justinian's precedent in marrying outside the aristocratic class; the marriage caused a scandal, but Theodora would prove to be a shrewd judge of character and Justinian's greatest supporter. Other talented individuals included his legal adviser. Justinian's rule was not universally popular.
Justinian recovered. Theodora died in 548 at a young age of cancer. Justinian, who had always had a keen interest in theological matters and participated in debates on Christian doctrine, became more devoted to religion during the years of his life; when he died on 14 November 565, he left no children, though his wife Theodora had given birth to a stillborn son several years into his reign. He was succeeded by Justin II, the son of his sister Vigilantia and married to Sophia, the niece of Empress Theodora. Justinian's body was entombed in a specially built mausoleum in the Church of the
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