The Middle Ages came about as a result of the fusion of what remained from the Roman Empire, the indigenous ‘barbaric’ peoples of Europe and the rise of Christian society. Each one of these elements played a major role in the development of the medieval society. The Roman Empire had been the authority in Europe for more than 400 years when its collapse in the west finally came about. As a result of this 400+ year span of time that Rome dominated the region, it has lasting effects on the peoples of Western Europe after its collapse. The ‘barbaric’ peoples of Europe, be it the Goths, the Visigoths, the Franks, or the Huns, or any more in a series of indigenous European peoples from the North of Rome, at some level filled the power void in the west after Rome’s collapse. For the years between the collapse of Rome and the rise of Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire, these barbaric peoples controlled Western Europe. The rise of Christian culture is taking place at the same time that Rome is declining. Whereas Rome was the thing that bound the peoples of Western Europe together during its rule, Christianity becomes the unifying element of Europe after Rome’s fall. A combination of the aforementioned three elements created what historians today call the Middle Ages.Rome can be classified as an empire in a stage of decline and then eventual collapse after the second century ACE. Rome experienced a civil war during the 3rd century and this nearly caused an internal collapse of the Roman Empire. It took a strong revivalist movement from internal Rome to bring about peace and restore order to the collapsing empire. As a result of this civil war and the reform needed to restore order to the Empire, Rome had undergone a series of changes that played a major role in the demise of the Western Empire. The first major change was the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Empire, whi...
