I recently saw a poster on here arguing that the beginning of the "Medieval" age is better defined by the Arab conquest of the Middle East rather than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. And for the Eastern Roman Empire, I can see that really makes sense; for someone living in Alexandria or Antioch, in the year 600 the world is still one with a mighty Roman Empire (which admittedly has lost some of the west to Barbarians, it's not at its height) and its rival the Persian Empire. Things haven't changed that much.
Of course, when the Caliphate invaded, everything changed. And that also applies to Spain.
But to a post-Roman noble in France, Italy or Germany did the conquest of all these lands make a big difference? Did it damage their trade networks, or were the trade networks already in a bad way? Did they hear/think much about it prior to the overthrow of the Visigoths?
the beginning of the "Medieval" age is better defined by the Arab conquest of the Middle East rather than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
This is essentially what Belgian historian Henri Pirenne argued almost just a century ago in his article at first, and firmly formulated in his posthumous book, Muhammad and Charlemagne (1937).
While much more can always be said on this classic historiographical discussiion, I've found some of the previous posts in this subreddit to understand the current academic consensus better: