>>17927370
>where there was such a degree of institutional continuity during the 5th and early 6th centuries that people only recognized that things had fundamentally changed several generations later. Id never heard that before, is it really true?
When it comes to law it's a 'sort of'. Outside of Ostrogothic Italy most other institutions just ceased to exist. So long as one wasn't trying to go to court and didn't interact with any Germanic peoples, Roman law still persisted for Romans and their practices, although it changed over time with new independent traditions without any state to wrangle and really care about these laws. The Roman legal system and courts no longer existed, but traditions remained.
>Whats problematic about germanic tribes? Is it an oversimplification or something?
Sometimes a simplification, especially when you want to talk about anything more specific than a generalisation. The Ostrogoths were not like the Visigoths who were not like the Franks who were not like the Vandals and so on. Objection to the term as a whole is basically personal taste as not being politically correct and so on. If you're using it in a general sense there isn't an issue with the term unless you have one yourself.
>>17927386
>late Roman Senatorial families continued to exist and hold positions of importance in most "barbarian" kingdoms after the fall of Rome for quite a while
This is not true outside of Italy. Romans were barred from nearly all positions of power across the entire west. Only Bishops remained majority Roman and that's only because they were elected by the local community and they remained at the mercy of their new rulers.
