During the five centuries which followed the Moorish conquest of Spain the Goths who lived on the shores of the Bay of Biscay and the inhabitants of the southern valleys of the Pyrenees gradually expanded by reconquering territory from the Moors, and before the middle of the twelfth century had formed the two large political communities of Castile and Arragon[11]. Each of these communities during its long contest with the Moors had acquired habits, thoughts and institutions of its own, and they were but little inclined to join themselves together into a single nation. The marriage of Ferdinand of Arragon with Isabella of Castile in 1469 produced as its result some time later that both Castile and Arragon were ruled by the same government: but differences and jealousies between the two peoples continued to exist long afterwards, even so late as the War of the Spanish Succession in the eighteenth century[12], and it may well be doubted whether the two were ever welded together into a single Spanish nation until after the terrible misfortunes which they endured and the great efforts which they made in a common cause during their war against Napoleon. [11] Hallam, _Middle Ages_, Chapter IV. [12] Stanhope, _Reign of Queen Anne_, Vol. I. p. 264. In Gaul the formation of a large political community was delayed till late in the middle ages; in Germany, the original home of the Germans, no large political community of great importance was established till late in the seventeenth century. In both countries the same hindrances stood in the way of the making of great communities. The two countries were included in the heterogeneous empires founded between 687 A.D. and 800 A.D. by the house of Pepin, especially by Charlemagne, the greatest man of the house of Pepin: in that empire, as in all heterogeneous empires, it was found necessary that the central ruler should delegate very great powers to the officials who governed provinces or districts: and under the circumstances of the time it was also found convenient for him to grant large estates of land to men who had been useful to him and could be trusted to serve him well in the future. In 843 Gaul (or the land of the West Franks) was severed from the empire, and set up a king of its own, who pretended to have the same powers as Charlemagne had exercised. But the kings of the West Franks could not control the local officials and landowners: by the eleventh century the local officials and the landowners had converted themselves into independent sovereigns, each ruling his own lands and the men who lived on his lands: that particular landowner who still enjoyed the title of king had no authority (or at any rate no authority which he could habitually exercise) except within the lands which specially belonged to him: and even within his own lands he, like the other landowners in Gaul, found that his authority was often disputed in arms by his tenants.