acceptance by the peers of France of Philip, count of Valois, as King Philip VI was a breach in continuity which was soon to be exploited by rivals, above all by Edward III of England. In Poland, the last of the Piasts, Casimir the Great, died leaving no son to succeed him in 1370, and another western dynasty-the house of Anjou--moved into both Hungary and Poland through marriage alliances, thereby creating the temporary union of the two crowns under Louis the Great of Anjou (d. 1382). Yet the joint rulership did not endure, and Hungary and Poland went their separate ways--one to Sigismund, the other to Ladislas, the heathen Lithuanian ruler who, converted to Christianity, preserved the integrity of the Catholic Slav kingdom of Poland against the incursions of the Germans, above all of the Teutonic Order. Lastly, England witnessed the violent deposition of four kings during the period 13271485: the Plantagenet crown was usurped by the Lancastrians in 1399, while their successors the Yorkists ( 1461-85) were replaced by the more durable house of Tudor. To talk of a European crisis in hereditary monarchy would be an exaggeration, but the striking fact remains that most of the ruling houses of the later Middle Ages were of recent origin, whether they were formed by ancient dynasties enlarging their territorial
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