The system of jurisprudence established by Justinian remained in force in the eastern empire until the taking of Constantinople, 1453 A.D. After the fall of the western empire, these laws had little sway until the twelfth century, when Irnerius, a German lawyer who had studied at Constantinople, opened a school at Bologna, and thus revived and propagated in the West a knowledge of Roman civil law. Students flocked to this school from all parts, and by them Roman jurisprudence, as embodied in the system of Justinian, was transmitted to most of the countries of Europe. During the fourth and fifth centuries, the process of the debasement of the Roman tongue went on with great rapidity. The influence of the provincials began what the irruptions of the northern tribes consummated. In many scattered parts of the empire it is probable that separate Latin dialects arose, and the strain upon the whole structure of the tongue was prodigious, when the Goths poured into Italy, established themselves in the capital, and began to speak and write in a language previously foreign to them. With the close of the reign of Theodoric the curtain falls upon ancient literature. ARABIAN LITERATURE. 1. European Literature in the Dark Ages.--2. The Arabian language.--3. Arabian Mythology and the Koran.--4. Historical Development of Arabian Literature.--5. Grammar and Rhetoric.--6. Poetry.--7. The Arabian Tales.-- 8. History and Science.--9. Education. 1. EUROPEAN LITERATURE IN THE DARK AGES.--The literature, arts, and sciences of the Arabs formed the connecting link between the civilizations of ancient and modern times. To them we owe the revival of learning in Western Europe, and many of the inventions and useful arts perfected by later nations. From the middle of the sixth century A.D. to the beginning of the eleventh, the interval between the decline of ancient and the development of modern literature is known in history as the Dark Ages. The sudden rise of the Arabian Empire and the rapid development of its literature were the great events which characterize the period.