Renowned for his victories in diplomacy and war, Suleiman's fame was even greater as a patron of art and letters. It was through him first that the Christendom of the sixteenth century heard of the glories of Eastern literature, and that Europe began to imitate Asia. It was the great age of Turkish poets. The court of Suleiman was thronged by poets who vied with each other in celebrating the glories of their master. Every bazaar of the East rang with his praises: in far distant lands the ingenious verse-makers made his victories, his pleasures, his magnificence, the theme of their elaborate compositions. Trade poured into Stambûl. All the riches of the East, the wonderful carpets and embroideries, the exquisite metal-work, the dignified designs of the pen and the brush, fixed their natural home in the court of the magnificent Suleiman. Under him the architecture of the Moslems reached its culmination: the splendid mosque named after him, with the türbehs around it, represent the great work of his age, worthy of commemoration as lengthy as that which Procopius gave to the edifices of his sovereign. Great as conqueror, as builder, and as restorer of ancient work, Suleiman may well be called, in yet another aspect, the Turkish Justinian. He was great also as a legislator, and his work completed that of Mohammed II. He laid down the limits of the privileges of the Ulemas, the powers of the Sheikh-ul-Islam and the Grand Vizier. Financial organisation, so essential to the security of his conquests, was made under his rule into an elaborate system. The penal code was revised, simplified, and, on the whole, rendered less severe. Every change, every reform, showed the guiding genius of the great Sultan; arbitrary as the worst of his race, unrestrained always in the exercise of his authority, he yet showed an Eastern despotism at its best, animated by a zeal for justice, for regularity, for the welfare of the people. Suleiman, whose name exercised so great a fascination over the imagination of the West, was the hero, Christian romancers thought, of a grand passion. The name of Roxelana became famous in the drama and poetry of Europe. Her story was indeed a striking one. Khurrem, "the joyous one," was a Russian captive, who, in the later years of the mighty Sultan, obtained an absolute control over him. From a slave, placed among hundreds of other captives in the harem, she rose to be herself Sultan,[35] the wife of the Commander of the Faithful.