I suppose this is a couple of questions at once, but I'm trying to understand exactly what happens to a society when it falls.
I guess the general idea of my questions are asking about, 'why was the Roman way of life forgotten, and how?' But I'm not sure if that's even a proper historical question.
Sorry if any of these questions completely miss the entire truth of what happened, I'm not too strongly well-versed on the Late Classical/Early Middle era, I'm just really trying to wrap my head around such a huge change in the dynamic of a continent.
While you wait for more answers, you may be interested to explore this section of our FAQ. Additionally, this comment here from an earlier thread today briefly discusses the situation of the Western empire around its end, and mentions that Roman culture and identity persisted even after the "fall" of Rome itself.
It caused another shift between Europe and the Middle East. First the mid east was stronger under Egypt, then it switched to Rome, then when Rome split in two, the East Roman (or Byzantine) Empire became the golden jewel country of the known world at the time after the Western Roman Empire (and the Han Dynasty) fell. The WRE split into several small countries that were in constant warfare, especially with viking invasion. Only Charlemagne helped to barely get them on their feet, and then Islam was created in the 7th century and the Middle East flourished in wealth, power and knowledge under them. It wasn't until the start of the Renaissance in 1453 (coincidentally also when the Byzantine Empire fell at Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks) that Europe started to show itself as sustainable and start to compete and eventually rise above the middle east.