In 476 CE, Germanic chieftain Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last Western Roman Emperor, conventionally marking the end of the Western Roman Empire. This event symbolized the transformation of the Mediterranean world from classical antiquity to the medieval period, though Eastern Roman (Byzantine) authority continued for nearly another millennium. Political fragmentation replaced centralized imperial rule across Western Europe.

The fall triggered preservation efforts by monasteries that saved classical Latin poetry from oblivion. Boethius wrote Consolation of Philosophy in prison, blending classical and Christian thought in prosimetrum form that influenced medieval poetry. The rupture between classical and medieval worlds created nostalgia for Roman grandeur that echoed through poetry from the Carolingian Renaissance to Petrarch, who saw himself as reviving lost classical values.