Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 2 1913.djvu/250

 CHAPTER VIII

(A)

IMPERIAL ITALY AND AFRICA: ADMINISTRATION

When in the year 534 Justinian organised the imperial administration in Africa, and after the year 540 in Italy, it was not so much his intention to create a new civil code as to restore in the main the conditions which had existed before the break in the Roman rule. In Africa this break had been complete owing to the constitution of the Vandal kingdom. In Italy the Roman civil administration had remained unaltered, even at the time when the rule of the Gothic king had superceded the direct imperial government, and therefore, after the expulsion of the Gothic army quartered on the land, only the military administration had to be created completely anew. Maintenance of the continuity, which from an imperial point of view had legally never been broken, and equal rights with those provinces which had never bowed to the yoke of the barbarians, are therefore the natural principles upon which Justinian founded his reorganisation of the West. It was, however, impossible in practice to ignore altogether the development of the last century. Africa and Italy had for so many years lived in political independence of each other, that it was no longer possible to look upon them as a united whole; in consequence of this, their administration remained entirely separate, as before. Whereas the dioecesis of Africa had been under the rule of the praefectus praetorio per Italias, until its occupation by the Vandals, it now received its own praefectus praetorio, who took the place of the former, henceforth superfluous vicarius Africae, so that the praefectus Italiae was limited to Italy. Sardinia and Corsica, however, which had been in the possession of the Vandals and were now won back by Justinian together with the Vandal kingdom, remained united with Africa. It was further of decisive importance for Italy that it was no longer, as before the so-called fall of the West-Roman Empire, ruled by two emperors with a local division of power, but by one only, and that he resided in the East. For the consequence was, that the court offices and central offices proper, such as the magister officiorum, the quaestor, the comites sacrarum largitionum, rerum privatarum and patrimonii, which as the highest administrative offices in Italy had been maintained within