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Would you please explain this in greater depth CH? I am in complete agreement with you but want to know why you believe it.
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I'll do my best. But this is a huuuuuuge topic....
Ok. Rome fell as a result of the westward migration of tribes and the collapse of her internal institutions - the inability to hand power on to the next generation without civil war being a key factor. By this time Rome was Christian. I don't know what was happening in the the East of Asia, but in the west basically the Huns moved west, forcing the Goths, Vandals, Franks, Magyar, and lord knows who else west across the Rhine and south across the Danube (which more or less marked the European boundary of the Roman Empire). When Rome fell there were rich Gaullish and British Provinces(for example) left undefended, and the Saxons piled into Britain for loot and land, the Franks into Gaul, and other tribes did the same elsewhere. The result was the complete collapse of civil society.
However, there was a parallel ecclesiastical society based around monasteries, which had flourished in the Pax Romana and whose structure survived based around the authority of the early Popes. Many of these monasteries were sacked and the monks killed or enslaved, but some survived and continued copying books - usually the Bible, but other things as well. Even in the sacked monasteries there were usually survivors who continued to work. They didn't necessarily produce much at this time, but they kept the idea of writing and scholarship alive. We are talking pretty basic stuff.
Once these barbarian tribes settled down the Popes began to send missionaries to convert the heathen, with considerable success. Rome fell in 410 AD (well, that's the accepted date. It was a long process) but three hundred years later there was - just one example - a sizeable monastic foundation at Jarrow and Wearmouth where a monk called Bede published his
Ecclesiastical Historyof the English People
I have very little information on what happened in the "missing" 300 odd years. They are called "The Dark Ages" for a reason! Basically the British tribes such as the Brigante and the Belgae were pushed into Wales and Cornwall and the Angles, Saxons and Jutes settled, sometimes intermarrying, sometimes wiping out the native inhabitants. No-one had much time for keeping written records, they were trying to stay alive.
But by 731 monasteries in England and France were established and producing works of scholarship. The Church was the only institution that had survived THROUGH the whole period and had preserved the skill of writing through ten generations when these skills were not used in secular society. And not only writing! They preserved Latin as the common tongue of Europe, which gave access to the great Romans like Tacitus or Virgil, they preserved Greek in some places, Roman Law and some basic maths, to give some examples. North African Bishops appointed to England brought a more advanced music with them, and a primitive form of musical notation (better than anything that existed here).
Because the Church was Pan-European, knowledge could move around geographically through the Church.
Ok, that'll do as a starting point!