[coliveira]

That's a good point. Unfortunately this leads to another cause of destabilization at the end of the Roman Empire: Christianity. You see, Christians precipitated the destruction of the pagan culture, which was the only culture shared by all people in Europe. Not only Roman history and culture was almost erased in that change, but also the oral traditions of nations around the Roman Empire that were also converted by the Christian Church. Of course, the ascension of Christianity as a power is also a result of the decline of Rome itself, so it is not like Christianity caused this, but it was a big factor in the cultural destruction that occurred at that time.

[sonnyblarney]

"Christians precipitated the destruction of the pagan culture, which was the only culture shared by all people in Europe."

? 'Pagan culture' is not some unified set of cultural norms. Rather, it's a broad category of possibly totally unrelated activities. Some of them codified via Rome (but those were adapted to Christianity) and then other, local ones.

The Christians in 300 CE were the most organized group on the continent, which was part of the reason the Emperor adopted Christianity.

An organized group of busy bodies might cause the decline of some thing (i.e. paganism) but certainly not the decline of the written word, education, governance etc. just the opposite.

One might argue that with the failure of Imperial Order, and the onset of tribal wars, it was the monks that carried most of the flame of civilization, which eventually led to the renewal of civil order and the reasonable ability to establish something approach civility.

Which is maybe close to the classical 'dark ages' narrative. Now of course maybe it was not as dark as we thought, but we certainly don't have a lot leftover from that time. Hence the historical narrative.

[coliveira]

I am not saying the Christianity lead to the decline of the written word, education, and governance. I am saying that it contributed to the end of oral traditions that were the only form of history known by non-Romanized pagans. It also lead to the destruction of many monuments and collections of books associated to pagan traditions in Rome.

I also don't believe that Christianity had the power to destroy civilization. They were just the result of the decay of economic power of Rome, which lead the people to organize around something other than the traditional government structure. It also had to do with the idea that the old gods were failing to defend Romans, so why not joining this new cult that seems to protect the poor and dispossessed.

[Swizec]

There’s a funny story about history of the Slavic tribes as it relates to this. Since Slavs didn’t write, the only reason we know their migration pattern into eastern europe and the balkans is by tracking when catholic churches stopped reporting back to HQ.

So at least on that end another reason for the break in history and lineage is that the people are completely different and in fact have no lineage back to Roman times.

Even though centuries later they converted to Christianity and started wondering why they don’t feel as Roman as they should.