After the defeat of the Western Roman Empire, a feudal state system came to dominate Western Europe until the 16th century. The traditional tribute-taking empire based on coercive means and devoted more to expansion than governance, so typical of ancient Rome or China, finally gave way to a system of divided authority characterized by feudal relations, city-states with much
independence, and urban alliances in which the Papacy played a leading role (Held, 1995: 78-79). This system was embodied in the Holy Roman Empire for centuries