After the fall of the Roman Empire, with its intricate combination of forms of governance and network of diplomacy with the "barbarians", history started all over as it were. The complexity was replaced by a primitive system of governance, the feudal system. Charlemagne administered his empire by means of this system; feudalism became widely adopted in Europe. The empire fell apart and developments unfolded at which increasingly complicated forms of government developed in the course of history. This history is a sequence of events in which all previous forms of government of antiquity slowly took shape again and passed in review. The developments were controlled mainly by those in power. Until the enlightenment revolutions, when man himself takes matters into his own hands.