The first decades of the fourteenth century witnessed many events that exemplify these general trends. In Hungary power was held by a handful of oligarchs who had acquired extensive properties and administrative positions under the rather weak kings of the late thirteenth century. The magnates, having receive the right to build castles on their estates, used these power bases to subjugate lesser nobles and, when the succession to the throne became contested, offered support to different pretenders. After the death of Andrew III (1290-1301), the last king of the founding dynasty of Arpad, the future of the realm lay with the great lords. Some of them supported the claim of the Angevin kings of Naples, while others turned to King Wenceslas II of Bohemia, both descendants of the Arpads in the female line. The king of Bohemia accepted the offer in the name of his son, Wenceslas, who was duly crowned king of Hungary in 1301. Because his father also ruled most of disunited Poland, for a brief moment it looked as though a Premyslide empire would emerge in the region.
However, the reign of the two Wenceslases in several kingdoms proved to be of very short duration. Although in Hungary their party enjoyed wide support, the Angevin claim was well advocated by papal evoys and generously supported by Italian money. Hungary proved to be a hopeless enterprise for Bohemia, and when Wenceslas II died in 1305, his son could do no better than to cede his claims to yet another relative of the Arpadian dynasty, Otto of Bavaria, and try to rescue his father's Polish acquisitions. Otto, though crowned king of Hungary, was taken prisoner by the voyvode (governor) of Transylvania and in 1307 fled from the country. After less than a year's reign Wenceslas III (1305-1306) was murdered while on his way to be crowned in Poland.
There was to be no east-central European empire for some time to come, while Hungary and Poland each experienced a century of stability and expansion under very able rulers. The years of virtually kingless rule by magnates enhanced the corporations of different groups that had to fend for themselves. Bohemian and Hungarian towns as well as the associations of lesser nobles in the counties of Hungary had to learn to govern themselves and try to keep the peace. The anarchic interregna thus prepared the way for rulers who could promise an end to lawlessness. The first round of the contest between Crown and nobility started with a fair chance for the monarchy in all three kingdoms.