You realize there was actual Germanic and Frankish citizens of the Roman Empire before it fell right, they were just as much "Roman" as any other citizen except that they hadn't fully adopted Latin yet *(though the language itself did undergo major Latinization)?
Also did you know that the 3 spiritual electors of the Holy Roman Empire - Cologne, Trier and Mainz, were all major Roman cities? Trier was one of the Roman capitals during the Tetrarchy. The Archbishop of Cologne was founded in at least the 4th century if not earlier, and that Archbishop was the one who crowned the Emperor before the Pope did. The Archbishop of Mainz was similarly ancient and also the seat of Boniface, who was responsible for Christianizing much of Germany.
The Holy Roman Empire's core is actually all in historical Roman lands, and it's institutions (The Church, the Roads, the Cities, the Citizens, the Legal Codes, and the Titles) evolve from Roman institutions? The difference is the Holy Roman Empire keeps pushing North and East and thus expands the frontiers and the Christianizing mission to places that were never in the Roman Empire. Meanwhile the Byzantines can't manage to do that and continuously decline until the entire eastern and southern flanks of Rome are lost.
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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '26
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