All these peoples are only ethnographical subdivisions, and each of them was subdivided into numerous independent clans and villages, separated from one another by forests and marshes; they had no towns or fortified places. The Lithuanian territory thus lay open to foreign invasions, and the Russians as well as the German crusaders availed themselves of the opportunity. The Borussians soon fell under the dominion of Germans, and ceased to constitute a separate nationality, leaving only their name to the state which later became Prussia. The Letts were driven farther to the north, mixing there with Livs and Ehsts, and fell under the dominion of the Livonian order. Only the Lithuanians proper, together with Samogitians, succeeded in forming an independent state. The early history of this state is imperfectly known. During the continuous petty war carried on against Slavonic invasions, the military chief of one of the clans, Ryngold, acquired, in the first half of the 13th century, a certain preponderance over other clans of Lithuania and Black Russia (Yatvyags), as well as over the republics of Red Russia. At this time, the invasions of the Livonian order becoming more frequent, and always extending southward, there was a general feeling of the necessity of some organization to resist them, and Ryngold's son, Mendowg, availed himself of this opportunity to pursue the policy of his father. He made different concessions to the order, ceded to it several parts of Lithuania, and even agreed to be baptized, in 1250, at Novograd Litovsk, receiving in exchange a crown from Innocent IV., with which he was crowned king of Lithuanians. He also ceded the whole of Lithuania to the order in case he should die without leaving offspring. But he had accepted Christianity only to increase his influence among other clans; and, as soon as he had consolidated a union between Lithuanians, Samogitians and Cours, he relapsed, proclaiming, in 1260, a general uprising of the Lithuanian people against the Livonian order. The yoke was shaken off, but internal wars followed, and three years later Mendowg was killed. About the end of the 13th century a new dynasty of rulers of Lithuania was founded by Lutuwer, whose second son, Gedymin (1316-1341), with the aid of fresh forces he organized through his relations with Red Russia, established something like regular government; he at the same time extended his dominions over Russian countries--over Black Russia (Novogrodok, Zditov, Grodno, Slonim and Volkovysk) and the principalities of Polotsk, Tourovsk, Pinsk, Vitebsk and Volhynia. He named himself _Rex Lethowinorum et multorum Ruthenorum_. In 1325 he concluded a treaty with Poland against the Livonian order, which treaty was the first step towards the union of both countries realized two centuries later. The seven sons of Gedymin considered themselves as quite independent; but two of them, Olgierd and Keistut, soon became the more powerful. They represented two different