Page "History of literature" Paragraph 21

After the fall of Rome ( in roughly 476 ), many of the literary approaches and styles invented by the Greeks and Romans fell out of favor in Europe.

In the millennium or so that intervened between Rome's fall and the Florentine Renaissance, medieval literature focused more and more on faith and faith-related matters, in part because the works written by the Greeks had not been preserved in Europe, and therefore there were few models of classical literature to learn from and move beyond.

What little there was became changed and distorted, with new forms beginning to develop from the distortions.

Some of these distorted beginnings of new styles can be seen in the literature generally described as Matter of Rome, Matter of France and Matter of Britain.