However, if it were not for the Bubonic plague, 600 would not have been "after the collapse of the Western Empire", as Justinian had reconquered North Africa and Italy, and it is not implausible that if those conquests had been consolidated that Iberia would have been added as well ... only leaving Julius Ceasar's pointless conquests of Transalpine Gaul and Britannia out of a revived Roman Empire.

Its the flea ... the flea I tell ya. There's your transition from late antiquity to the early medieval period.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.