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
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church is a 1981 non-fiction book by Catholic priest and author Malachi Martin. Martin wrote this book to analyse the sudden and rapid decline of the Roman Catholic Church in its ecclesiastical organization and doctrinal unity since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). The book is an account of the history of the Roman Catholic Church progressing from the earliest beginnings tand Roman Emperor Constantine the Great's relationship with the church during the reign of Pope Silvester I up through the post Vatican II popes and