We shouldn't also dismiss more practical reasons, why build a new church if you can reuse one of the abandoned Roman temples? Why build a fortress to protect yo

We shouldn't also dismiss more practical reasons, why build a new church if you can reuse one of the abandoned Roman temples? Why build a fortress to protect yourself from your enemies if you can just patch up some holes and install a gate to the Coliseum (or just convert some emperor mausoleum to one)? Even if people were fully aware (and at least the more educated ones were) that there was nothing magical about Roman construction they simply had no need to build anything similar themselves when they could just reuse the already present structures (either directly or as building material).