After the Fall of the Roman Empire

When the Roman Empire divided into Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) in 397 AD, people in Europe suffered from outside invasion. In 476 AD, the Germanic chief Odoacer successfully conquered the Western Roman Empire; it ended the history of the Roman Empire, which lasted for 12 centuries. During the period of Roman Empire, the emperors had absolute power in political and military aspects. In fact, Roman Empire was an autocratic empire and the emperors owned the empire. Therefore, after the fall of the Roman Empire, most people were confused because the empire/king lost the power. Somehow, there was no proud to be a Roman because the citizenship did not work. It was almost like that a membership in a club but cannot have any benefit. Therefore, people in Europe looked for comfort from the church and denoted themselves to their religion, Christianity. People followed the rules made by the Pope. In other words, the power of the empires transferred to the Church. In terms of the social class, there were different social classes in Roman Empire. They were divided based on the property and military force. For example, the richest class was Senatorial class because these people had political power and their own army. But the truth was that they had the wealth to own all the things. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the social status was ruled by the feudalism, which was the land-based system. The social classes can be easily divided into two, the upper class and the lower class. All in all, people in Europe changed after the fall of Roman Empire, as least from the governmental, religious and social aspects.