for the political and social life still smacked of Asia rather than of Europe, and the Russian Christianity, having been derived from Constantinople, differed from the Christianity of western Europe. Russia was not to appear as a conspicuous European state until the eighteenth century. [Sidenote: Poland in 1500] Southwest of the tsardom of Muscovy and east of the Holy Roman Empire was the kingdom of Poland, to which Lithuanians as well as Poles owed allegiance. Despite wide territories and a succession of able rulers, Poland was a weak monarchy. Lack of natural boundaries made national defense difficult. Civil war between the two peoples who composed the state and foreign war with the neighboring Germans worked havoc and distress. An obstructive parliament of great lords rendered effective administration impossible. The nobles possessed the property and controlled politics; in their hands the king gradually became a puppet. Poland seemed committed to feudal society and feudal government at the very time when the countries of western Europe were ridding themselves of such checks upon the free growth of centralized national states. [Sidenote: Hungary in 1500] Somewhat similar to Poland in its feudal propensities was the kingdom of Hungary, which an invasion of Asiatic tribesmen [Footnote: Hungarians, or Magyars--different names for the same people.] in the tenth century had driven like a wedge between the Slavs of the Balkan peninsula and those of the north Poles and Russians. At first, the efforts of such kings as St. Stephen (997-1038) promised the development of a great state, but the weakness of the sovereigns in the thirteenth century, the infiltration of western feudalism, and the endless civil discords brought to the front a powerful and predatory class of barons who ultimately overshadowed the throne. The brilliant reign of Matthias Hunyadi (1458-1490) was but an exception to the general rule. Not only were the kings obliged to struggle against the nobles for their very existence--the crown was elective in Hungary--but no rulers had to contend with more or greater enemies on their frontiers. To the north there was perpetual conflict with the Habsburgs of German Austria and with the forces of the Holy Roman Empire; to the east there were spasmodic quarrels with the Vlachs, the natives of modern Rumania; to the south there was continual fighting, at first with the Greeks and the Slavs--Serbs and Bulgars, and later, most terrible of all, with the Ottoman Turks. [Sidenote: The Ottoman Turks in 1500]