JUSTINIAN I (482–565), Roman emperor, was born in or near Skopje in Macedonia, a city where the local aristocracy spoke Latin. The trusted minister of his uncle, Justin I, from 518, Justinian was made his coemperor and succeeded him in 527. Justinian worked for the liberation of the Latin West from armies of occupation: Ostrogoths in Italy and Illyricum, Vandals in Africa and Sicily, Visigoths in Spain. To this end it was necessary to repair the breach between the court and church of Constantinople, and the church and city of Rome, which had been caused by concessions made in the East to those who held that the Council of Chalcedon (451) had pressed the distinction between the divine and human natures of Christ too far in a direction that could be called Nestorian.

Before the reign of Justinian, Chalcedonians in the East were a party opposed to anything that might...