Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire Roman civilisation which under-girded the Empire. According to this school, drawing its basic premise from the Pirenne thesis, the Roman world underwent a gradual (though often violent) series of transformations, morphing into the medieval world. The historians belonging to this school often prefer to speak of Late Antiquity instead of the Fall of the Roman Empire. In "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (1776–88), Edward Gibbon famously placed the blame on a loss of civic virtue among the Roman citizens. They gradually entrusted the role of defending the Empire to barbarian mercenaries who eventually turned
Decline of the Byzantine Empire significant factors in the decline of the Byzantine empire. As one of the main institutional strengths of the Byzantine state, the theme system was never replaced by a viable long-term alternative. This left the empire lacking in underlying structural strengths. The result was an empire that depended more than ever before on the strengths of each individual emperor or dynasty. The collapse of imperial power and authority after 1185 revealed the inadequacy of this approach. Decline of the Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire during the medieval period, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire) following