Houghton Mifflin Social Studies
Chapter 15 Lesson 4: The Fall of Rome (pp. 475-481)
I. Barbarian Invasions
B. By the A.D. 200s, the frontier of the empire was no longer a clear-cut boundary between barbarians and the Romans.
C. Historians use the year A.D. 476, when the last emperor was forced out of the western part of the empire, as the fall of Rome.
II. Growth of the Church
B. Some of the barbarians tribes from the north converted to Christianity.
C. Pagan Romans blamed Rome's decline on the fact that Romans had abandoned their old gods.
III. The Causes of the Fall
B. Other factors in the fall included: decline in the work force, a lack of technology, and a greatly weakened army.
IV. The Roman Legacy
B. In Europe, Rome's heritage in book form was preserved in monasteries.
C. In Constantinople, scholars copied many important Greek and Roman works, thereby saving them for the future.
Lesson at a Glance Outline
A. Over a period of 300 years, many barbarian tribes made their way south into the Roman Empire.
A. While the Roman empire declined, Christianity grew stronger.
A. A far-flung empire, economic decline, and the growth of a government which required more and more of its people were some of the factors in the fall of the Roman Empire.
A. Following the fall of the western Roman Empire, Europe entered 500 years of decline called the Early Middle Ages.
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