which had sufficient opportunities elsewhere to provide a focus and justification for its monarchy. The transition from the loose federation of Magyar bands of the tenth century into the kingdom of the Hungarians was thus eased because unity provided sufficient force to resist the interventions of Germany and of Byzantium, and at the same time gave sufficient strength to establish an effective domination over Croatia for most of the twelfth century. Gold and silver mines and a considerable demesne made the monarchy relatively strong despite a number of succession disputes. Poland was less fortunate; it had less opportunity to develop into a powerful and unified state because Pomerania and the other Slav lands to which it aspired were also being sought by the German king and magnates, from Henry II's time only too ready to ally with the pagan tribes to prevent the development of too formidable a Poland. To its south was the Bohemian duchy, most closely bound to Germany of all the eastern states and thus able to establish its own dominion of Moravia to the exclusion of Polish claims there. By 1138 Poland's once formidable Piast dynasty of monarchs had fragmented into mutually opposed branches, each willing to call in German help as it suited them. Bohemia had meanwhile enjoyed comparative stability, but at the expense of effective incorporation into the German kingdom, albeit under its own line of Přemyslid dukes; the crowns granted to Wratislaw II for his assistance against Henry IV's Saxon opponents or to Wladislaw II for the large troop contingents he led to Italy on Barbarossa's behalf were small compensation for this subjection, though the interregnum in Germany on Henry VI's death was shortly to provide the opportunity for its mitigation.
Where the Scandinavian countries are concerned the irony is that the powerful states which barred the way to their expansion were largely of their own creation. The Norman settlement on the Seine attracted immigrants, not war parties. The possibility of raiding and then launching a full-scale invasion of England was a powerful spur to Viking unity, but once it had been achieved that function ceased. Settlers and lords in the conquered territories had no interest in harnessing
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