Not the Roman Empire, but the country of the Romans.
Therefore its wrong to consider “rights and obligations”. Thats what defines an empire, a country is defined differently.
The Roman country was a combination of the two alliances, The first the Roman cities, and the 2nd the italian cities, which pretty much dominated and thus defined a country , the Roman Republic run by SPRQ.
The alliances of cities lasted until the 1500’s, and then came the times of the Lombard, Spain, HRE hegemony … cities lost the power to their surrounding states, but the basic power block remained in southern Italy which regained the north to form Modern Italy.
In many ways, including even the boundaries between France, HRE/Deutchland, the loss of identity to Spain or HRE is not consequential enough, the system of alliances of cities formed a country that maintained the population and the culture, and that can be seen in modern Italy
IIRC William considered Harold to be a usurper, and not a legitimate King. Therefore WC would have viewed himself as the successor to Edward the Confessor, after whose death Harold had illegally claimed the crown.
It didn’t exist until a half-century ago (by the most generous interpretation), so some other entity had to succeed to the Roman Empire first. You can’t inherit something that didn’t exist for a while.
I’d imagine, notwithstanding the possibility of being killed for being an idolater etc. a regular Roman citizen would find himself more at home under the Abassids, than any of these other suggestions, barring perhaps the early Byzantine periods, whilst it at least still oriented itself west, perhaps under Justinian.
since this is the gq and it is clear you are not a person who is spending times in the halls of bruxelles, perhaps refrain from not informed political comment?
Maybe. Ottoman Empire/Turkey[edit]
There is some debate over whether the modern Republic of Turkey was the continuing state to the Ottoman Empire or a successor.[3] The two entities fought on opposing sides in the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1922), and even briefly co-existed as separate administrative units (whilst at war with one another): Turkey with its capital in Ankara and the Ottoman Empire from Istanbul. The nationalist faction, led by Mustafa Kemal who defected from the Ottoman army, established the modern republic as a nation state by defeating the opposing elements in the independence war.