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Germanic kings were ruling over pieces of the Western Empire, but in Constantinople a Roman was still ruling over the Eastern Empire. This Roman was named Justinian. Now, up to this time there had been a great many rules or laws by which the people were governed. There were so many of these rules and they were so mixed up that one law would tell you you could do one thing and another would tell you you couldn’t. It was as if your mother said you could stay up till nine o’clock tonight and your father said you must go to bed at eight. It was hard for people to tell, therefore, what one must do and what one must not do.
In order to untangle this snarl, Justinian had a set of laws made for the government of his people, and many of these were so good and so just that they are still the law today. If you notice that Justinian begins with Just , this will help you to remember that he was the one who made just laws.
Another thing Justinian did that has lasted to the present time was to build in Constantinople a very beautiful church called Santa Sophia. Though it is no longer a church, it is still standing after all these years and is a beautiful sight to see. Still another thing he did that you could never guess. It had nothing to do with war or law or buildings.
Travelers from the Far East, where China now is, had brought back tales of a wonderful caterpillar that wound itself up with a fine, thin thread over a mile long, and they told stories of how the Chinese unwound this thread and wove it into cloth of the finest and smoothest kind. This thread, as you might guess, was called silk, and the caterpillar that made it was called the silkworm. People in Europe had seen this beautiful silk cloth, but how it was made had been a mystery—a secret. They thought it so wonderfully beautiful that it was supposed to have been made by fairies or elves or even sent down from heaven. Justinian found out about these caterpillars and had men bring these silkworms into Europe so that his people also might make silk cloth and have silk ribbons and fine silk garments, and therefore we give him the honor of starting the manufacturing of silk in Europe.
About the same time that Justinian lived, there was a king in France named Clovis. Clovis belonged to the Germanic tribe called the Franks, which gave the name France to that country. Clovis believed in Thor and Woden as all of his people did. Clovis had a wife named Clotilda, whom he loved very dearly. Clotilda thought all the fighting and cruelty, which her people seemed to like, was wrong. She had heard about the religion of Christ, which did not believe in quarreling and fighting, and she thought she would like to be a Christian. So she was baptized. She then tried to persuade her husband, Clovis, to become a Christian, also.
Clovis was just then going to war—the very thing the Christians preached against. However, just to please his wife, he promised her, if he won the battle, he would become a Christian. He did win, and he kept his word and was baptized and had his soldiers baptized also. Clovis made Paris his capital, and Paris is still the capital of France.
It was about this same time, also, that a king named Arthur was ruling in England. Many stories and poems have been written about him, most of which are mythical. Although we know these stories are not historically true, they are, nevertheless, important and interesting—like those tales that are told about the heroes of the Trojan War.
It was said that there was a sword called Excalibur stuck so fast in a stone that no one could draw it out except the man who should be king of England. All the nobles had tried without success to draw the sword, when one day a young boy named Arthur pulled it out with the greatest ease, and he was accordingly proclaimed king.
King Arthur chose a company of the nobles to rule with him, and as they sat with him at a round table they were known as the Knights of the Round Table. Tennyson, a great English poet, has written in verse an account of the doings of King Arthur and his knights in a long poem called The Idylls of the King , which you will have to read yourself, for we must go on to the next story.
