Quote from: Iron Simulacrum;462465A few things fed the development of (early) medieval society while the Roman Empire was still around rather than being raked out of the ashes:

Status differences
in 212 all free men in the Empire were granted citizenship (not by Marcus Aurelius as played by Alec Guinness in an act of political wonderfulness). The effect was to remove the status distinction between citizen and non-citizen and instead entrench one that had been brewing for a century already between 'honestiores' and 'humiliores' (ie "the better sort" and "the more humble folk". The old legal privileges (including how roughly you can be treated and what sort of execution you are entitled to) graft to these statuses which are basically between rich and poor. This two-tier system sits behind the medieval distinctions of nobles and commoners.

Christianity, or more particularly, the power - including significant wealth - of the church. Nuff said - but well under way before the collapse.

Town and country.
The aristocracy move their power base to the countryside and out of the cities, which become increasingly irrelevant except as market and religious centres. Its these country seats that get commandeered by barbarians and form the basis of aristocracy, while towns pursue a separate development, no longer the "urbs" or "asty" with its connected territory.

There are loads more - including the idea of peasantry tied to specific lands (the colonate) and the substitution of tithes and service for state taxation. The big new invention of the post-Roman era is primogeniture, which is a game-changer. Slavery never went away - but once you subject the peasantry to serfdom you don't need it, so it just withered. All these things are interesting to think about when world building (IMHO).

In short, 'classical' Rome collapsed and something new came out way before Rome actually collapsed. Not to say it wasn't traumatic when it happened.

Certainly, but that's because Rome's collapse was not sudden, but a drawn out collapse; of which all the things you mentioned were symptoms.  Its not like in 475 there was a thriving Roman empire and suddenly in 476 it was gone.
Rather, the collapse started in the crisis of the 3rd century, and did not really finish until long after there was no western emperor (to the point that for as long as a couple of centuries after the last Roman emperor was deposed, many people still would have figured they were part of the Empire, or an empire, or that things would be coming back around any time now).  Essentially, things kept on breaking down for a long time before they really started getting better.  Likewise, I mark the change out of a post-apocalyptic society as starting in the 15th century, but that's really itself a consequence of a massive shift happening in the 14th century: the Black Death, which ironically is what allowed for the creation of a new civilization.  The middle ages were really mostly just the long ugly denouement of the Roman Empire.  

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Also the eastern empire kept chugging along nearly until its fall in 1453.

Quote from: RPGPundit;462566The middle ages were really mostly just the long ugly denouement of the Roman Empire.  

Charlemagne was busy during the 700's forming a new state out of the vacuum that the absence of the Roman Empire created. He forged the State specifically including the Christian Church, and from various nobles in Northern France, Belgium, and Western Germany... too bad his children were more interested in dividing what he had created during his lifetime.

In central and Eastern Germany, the various tribes ruled more or less along the lines that they had previously ruled by... The introduction of the christianity was a game changer though, and during the time of Hildegard Von Bingen during the 800's, the church rose substantially in power for the next two hundred years. By 1100 or so, the formation of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany was well underway with Knightly orders such as the Templars and Hospitallars conquering territories in the Baltic and Poland where pagans still ruled, bringing christianity to Eastern Europe. German secret societies ruled by the Barons and answerable to the papacy in Rome enforced the morale dictates of both feudal and church law on the peasantry.

The growing underclass of peasantry took two notable hits, the first was the call to the Crusades in the middle east, and many peasants simply ran away to make a better life for themselves under the umbrella of the pilgrimage... The second was the plagues, which decimated the population of Europe. Landowning nobles and craftsmen had to actually compete for labor by offering real compensation. This set the stage to allow for a growing middle class of merchants and craftsmen who then maneuvered for even more power using new guilds to wrest control of resources and trade away from the warriors of old.

Only then, in the late 1300's and early 1400's with well established Royal families (indebted to the merchants) allow for the conditions to arise that supported the formation of national states ruled by many, however still ultimately answerable to one.

In Western Europe the Roman Empire was long gone by 600 a.d. What was left was a patchwork of states and landowners that forged completely new alliances and rebuilt completely new governments deliberately antithetical to the previous efforts of Rome, in order to forge even better results but only for the local leaders...

It was the best that Rome had to offer, combined with the best remaining local customs and traditions. Other than the peasants, if you had to ask anyone at the time, they would say their small fiefdoms were a vast improvement over the previous demands and dictates that came from Rome.

Quote from: RPGPundit;462566The middle ages were really mostly just the long ugly denouement of the Roman Empire.  

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It's a reasonable postion to take - but with a view to using the early-mid middle ages as a model (or not) for world building, what elements of life and society require a lost/broken past empire to have created it in the first place?

Quote from: Iron Simulacrum;462632It's a reasonable postion to take - but with a view to using the early-mid middle ages as a model (or not) for world building, what elements of life and society require a lost/broken past empire to have created it in the first place?

The combination of nearly-barbarian warlords along with scattered and incomplete remnants of technologies (both literal technologies like cities, castles, etc; and "social technologies" like laws, customs, taxes & economies, learning, bureaucracy, etc) that are from a society much more advanced.  That's what feudal europe basically was.

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Quote from: soltakss;462412For the couple of centuries post-Rome, perhaps, but once you reach about 1000AD then the societies are based on their own laws and hierarchies, with virtually no references to Rome, except when trying to justify something.

The society of 1000AD was very much in the shadow of Rome. The kings, princes, priests, and nobles were continually striving to restore or uphold Roman ideals even tho they had only scattered ideas of how all things Rome worked.

Reasons why this never restored the empire, despite several attempts, is that the germanic ideas about kingshp and personal loyalty prevented political unity. The economic was so wrecked that land was the only true store of value which caused manoralism to dominate the economic landscape. Much of Rome's methods only worked under a money economy.

As Pundit said things only started to truly change with the rise of the nation-state, starting in the 14th and 15th century.

Quote from: soltakss;462412Middle or High medieval societies have virtually no connection to the Roman Empire. Sure, Roman Catholicism is important and based on Rome, and the Holy Roman Empire claims it is a successor, but they are so far removed from the Roman Empire that they can't really be seen as being built on Rome. Certainly feudalism is a concept that is not dependent on Rome, or it's fall, and feudalism drove much of medieval society.

Western European societies were not little mini-Romes. Instead they were societies sitting on a heap of partly understood Roman technology trying to emulate Roman institutions while governing using Germanic ideas of kingship and loyalty under a broken economic system where land was the only store of value.

There were a lot of connections to it just wasn't working very well.

Quote from: estar;462680The economic was so wrecked that land was the only true store of value which caused manoralism to dominate the economic landscape. Much of Rome's methods only worked under a money economy.

Instead they were societies sitting on a heap of partly understood Roman technology trying to emulate Roman institutions while governing using Germanic ideas of kingship and loyalty under a broken economic system where land was the only store of value.

Were gold, silver, and other precious metals, not a store of value during this time period?

Quote from: ggroy;462701Were gold, silver, and other precious metals, not a store of value during this time period?

No because you couldn't eat gold, and the surplus wasn't there to buy enough. There were segments where money could used, it was also still a prestige item, but 90% of the early medieval economy was based on land.

The closer you get to the Renaissance the more useful money became. A rough guide is the transition of the kings relying on the feudal levy to collecting taxes/scutage and hiring troops outright. Things recovered to the point where monetary investments became feasible again. See also the history of banking.

Compare how Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, Edward III, and Henry VIII, raised troops and manage their wars. Alfred was about raising and supporting the fyrd, while Henry VIII was about arranging loans to hire troops, and buy supplies.

The various Islamic states and the Byzantines were still minting coins. But after the 7th century, the Bezant (the Byzantine gold coin) was the only gold coin you'd find north of the Alps, and it was extremely rare until you get to the Crusades, where it merely becomes rare. Trade in Northern Europe started to collapse sometime after the Gothic War, when the Italian markets for their agricultural products collapsed and didn't recover fully until the Renaissance. For most of the time in between those events, Northern Europe was an economically underdeveloped backwater populated by local strongmen - the West Africa of its day.

Quote from: RPGPundit;462241So basically, here's the first and only thing you really need to know about creating a medieval society: A medieval society would not exist unless there is first a Roman Empire to collapse, for that medieval society to be eking out an existence in the ruins of.

Hmmm, maybe not...you can also draw upon feudal Japan as an example. In that case, the empire whose civil institutions & traditions they are drawing upon still exists – it just happens to be a neighboring country (that never bothers to conquer them).

Quote from: Imp;462783Hmmm, maybe not...you can also draw upon feudal Japan as an example. In that case, the empire whose civil institutions & traditions they are drawing upon still exists – it just happens to be a neighboring country (that never bothers to conquer them).

That's an interesting point, its a whole other kind of medievalism, though with certain parallels to be sure.  I don't know if that's something the OP is looking to draw upon or not, depends on how euro-typical he wanted his model to be, I guess.

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Quote from: RPGPundit;462933That's an interesting point, its a whole other kind of medievalism, though with certain parallels to be sure.  I don't know if that's something the OP is looking to draw upon or not, depends on how euro-typical he wanted his model to be, I guess.

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I am drawing from all kinds of cultures. Home base will be pretty European. But some of the places I am working on, might be better characterized as hybrids of a few places in history. Drawing a bit from India for the elves. Japanese history has always been difficult for me to follow though.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;462934I am drawing from all kinds of cultures. Home base will be pretty European. But some of the places I am working on, might be better characterized as hybrids of a few places in history. Drawing a bit from India for the elves. Japanese history has always been difficult for me to follow though.

I see, well, unfortunately Japan is not one of my areas of historical study, but you could certainly find a good parallel of feudalism with medieval Japan; and I'm sure there are some good books to study on that subject. Possibly even a good RPG book (Sengoku?).

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