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 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 the Sack of Constantinople (1204) slowly collapsed by Ottoman expansion. After crisis of the Gothic Wars it managed to re-establish itself in a golden age under the Justinian dynasty in the 6th century, and during the Early Middle Ages it continued to flourish even after the Muslim conquest of the Levant and the constant threat of Arab invasion. But in the High Middle Ages, under pressure from the Seljuk Empire, it suffered serious setbacks and