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… The territories of an empire, when the empire collapses, go through a long stage of social and political turmoil, dragged along by all manner of fragmenting tendencies that generate enormous conflict. […] Feudalism is the result of the fall of the Roman Empire - that is, of the failure of _the State_. Feudalism arises automatically whenever such a breakdown of the State occurs, for feudalism is nothing other than the search for personal alliances above the law. The world becomes too insecure to trust strangers.
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Translation is my own.
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Elvira Roca Barea, 'Imperiofobia y Leyenda Negra. Roma, Rusia, Estados Unidos y El Imperio Español'. Chapter 7. (2016)