ABSTRACT
Much Analysis of the Congeries of Changes that is Generally known as the "end of the ancient world in the west" — or some similar name — has been harmed by considerable lack of clarity as to what is actually meant by the phrase. The concept of the end of antiquity of course means different things to different sorts of historians, but many speak of it as if these different things all coexisted equally, intermingled in some giant classical bran-tub. Graeco-Roman paganism, secular Latin literature, temples, the emperor, the senate, slavery, togas. Feudalism was already present in the Roman empire as a subsidiary economic system long before the Germans came, and indeed in so far as the German invaders had such things as a landed aristocracy, these largely resulted from Roman influence. In the west, Europe was faced with the degradations, but also the possibilities, of feudalism.
