what are the major reasons that historians give for the fall of the Roman Empire in west A.D.476?

Answer 1

Historians believe that the empire had become too big to control. Back in those days, it could take months for a message to travel from one end of the empire to Rome. With invading Barbarians, it was too hard to control the whole empire or even just the western half. The eastern half was manageable, so the main city in the empire became Constantinople in present-day Turkey. With more focus on the eastern half, the western half fell apart. After the fall of the western half, the eastern half, with far fewer raids, became the Byzantine Empire.

Answer 2

The most recent answer is of a Prof. Heather of Oxford University. He says that one has a Roman Empire in the West if there is still a Roman Emperor whose writ runs in Europe. Second, if there is a bureaucracy that runs the government and collects taxes. This, if the bureaucracy uses tax money to field a Roman army. AD 476 is a pretty good date to end the Roman Empire, Prof. Heather suggests, because in AD 490, Eastern Emperor Anastasius named Theodoric his viceroy, not only King of the Ostrogoths, but King of Italy. Aetius was the last general to field a Roman army when he defeated Attila in AD 454. And Romulus Augustulus was the last person to claim rule of the Western Roman Empire. Also, after Anastasius appointed Theodoric, all of the Roman landowners of Italy, Gaul, and Spain realized that they could not depend on the Eastern Emperor in Constantinople, but would have to reach agreements with local chiefs of the Visigoths, Franks, and other barbarian chiefs.

Answer 3

In AD 395 the empire split into eastern and western halves, with the west under severe pressure from the barbarians. Rome was sacked in 410 by the Visigoths, and the western empire fell to German invaders in 476; the east continued as the Byzantine Empire until 1453.

Answer 4

This history channel documentary should explain it to you:

http://infoplanetonline.com/Joomla/content/view/652/