Justinian removed all this confusion by producing three great works. His _Code_ collected the imperial constitutions into a manageable shape, striking out all the obsolete edicts, and bringing the rest up to the requirements of a Christian state of the sixth century. His _Digest_ or _Pandects_ did the same for the decisions of the ancient lawyers, laying down the balance of authority, and specifying the precedents which were to be accepted. Lastly, the _Institutes_ gave a general sketch of Roman law in the form of a commentary on its principles for the use of students. These volumes were destined to be the foundation of all systematic jurisprudence in modern Europe; their compilation was the last, and not the least, of the works of the ancient Roman spirit of law and order, incarnate in the last great emperor of Roman speech, for none of Justinian’s successors could say, as could he himself, that Latin was his native tongue. After-ages remembered him, above all things, as the compiler of the _Code_, and it was as its framer that he is set by Dante in one of the starry thrones of the Christian paradise. In spite of all his great achievements it cannot be disputed that Justinian left the empire weaker than he found it. Its territorial expansion in Italy, Africa, and Spain did not compensate for the exhaustion of the Eastern provinces. By his ruthless taxation Justinian had drained off their vital energies, and left them poorer and weaker than they had ever been before. Even his armies felt the reaction; at the end of his reign we read that they were sinking both in numbers and efficiency; the new and extended frontiers were more than they could guard, and the old race of generals who had followed Belisarius was dead. Justinian himself is said to have neglected their pay and maintenance, while he set his aged brains to wrestle with the problem of the ‘Three Chapters’ or the heresy of Aphthartodocetism. Like Louis XIV. of France, whom he resembles in many other respects, Justinian closed a reign of unparalleled magnificence as a gloomy pietist, whose despotism drained and crushed a people who had grown to abhor his very name. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VII THE EARLIER FRANKISH KINGS AND THEIR ORGANISATION OF GAUL 511-561. The Sons of Chlodovech—Theuderich conquers Thuringia, 531—Childebert and Chlothar conquer Burgundy, 532—Their war with the Visigoths—Theudebert invades Italy—Chlothar reunites the Frankish kingdoms, 558—Organisation of the Frankish realm—The great officials—Mayors of the Palace—Counts and Dukes—Local government, the Mallus—Legal and financial arrangement.