> Roman Empire's "hands-off" governance model Is really not something that would describe the medieval Roman empire (or pre-medieval one as well to be fair) ve

> Roman Empire's "hands-off" governance model Is really not something that would describe the medieval Roman empire (or pre-medieval one as well to be fair) very well. It was the most centralized state in Europe well into the high middle ages. It had a large professional army, navy and bureaucracy (unlike every other state) and a relatively very high tax burden to match it. Which is one of the reasons many of their subjects really didn’t mind being conquered that much. The Germans, Arabs, Turks, Bulgarians were generally more “hands-off” and less into persecuting religious minorities (at least during the initial periods after the conquest).