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by Bayart 2619 days ago
>Europe came to be ruled by local tribes, in the same way that happened throughout history. Europeans demonstrated to be as barbarians as any other group of people in the world that had no strong institutions to protect society from their immediate power urges.

It really wasn't. As Roman imperial faded in, agents that were Roman auxiliaries filled the void with the support and help of local authorities, chiefly senatorial families and the Church (filled with members of senatorial families), which kept being a structuring force for society during lulls in civil government.

Stable government recovered relatively quietly and frankly certain areas were better off in terms of peace after the Western part of the empire « collapsed » than during the strife preceding it. Areas that were really worst off got ravaged by civil war, not tribal violence (such as is the case with Italy).

I recommend Karl Ferdinand Werner's books on the subject, the transition between Imperial Roman Gaul and Frankish(-Roman) Gaul. But his paper La "conquête franque" de la Gaule : itinéraires historiographiques d'une erreur (The "Frankish conquest" of Gaul : historiographical itineraries of an error) is enlightening and short, if you can read French.

The narrative of the Late Antiquity/Early Medieval "barbarian invasions" is known to be complete rubbish, don't fall for it.