The eastern group of nations is widely different in character. It includes a greater number of states, even if we omit from the reckoning the great German principalities which were, by the end of the Middle Ages, all but sovereign powers; and it is less homogeneous in culture. The Empire forms the centre of the group, and round the Empire the minor states are grouped like satellites: on the west, Savoy and Provence; south of the Alps, Venice, the Papal States, and the Kingdom of Sicily-- the last-named independent until 1194, and the private property of the Hohenstauffen from that date till 1268; on the east the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia and Poland, and the Russian principalities; on the north the three Scandinavian powers. Large as it is, this group only includes one state of the first rank; for the Norman kingdom, though a masterpiece of constructive statesmanship, was important in European politics rather as a second and a makeweight than as a principal, and would have been more admired than feared but for the accidents which made the Norman alliance so valuable to the Holy See. When Naples and Sicily were held by German Emperors, the Empire towered like a colossus above the states of Scandinavia, the Slav and the Magyar. But even without this support, the Empire might have continued to dominate two- thirds of Europe, if the imperial resources had not been swallowed up by the wars of Italy, and if the Emperors who came after the interregnum had given the national interest priority over those of their own families. In fact, however, the mischief of the Mezentian union between Italy and Germany survived their separation; as in western so in central Europe, the course of political development was largely determined by the persistent and disastrous efforts of a Teutonic to absorb a Latin nationality. But whereas the English attacks on France were directly responsible for the growth of a French national state, the failure of Germany left Italy but half emancipated from the foreigner, and more disintegrated than she had been at any period in the past. And whereas England, by her failure, was reduced for a while to a secondary rank among the nations, the purely German Empire of the fifteenth century was still the leading power east of the Rhine. This was partly the result of calamities to neighbouring nations which could neither be foreseen or obviated. While Western Europe was shielded, in the later Middle Ages, from the inroads of alien races, Eastern Europe felt the impact of the last migratory movements emanating from Central Asia and the Moslem lands. In the thirteenth century the advance guards of the Mongol Empire destroyed the medieval kingdom of Poland, and reduced the Russian princes to dependence upon the rulers of the Golden Horde. In the fifteenth, the advance of the Turks along the Danube completed the ruin of the Magyar state, already weakened by the feuds of aristocratic factions.