Whatever the value of these universalist ideas may have been, the actual history of the states in the region can be described as a series of attempts by one or another ruling house to establish its sway over all or most of its neighbors. In the early 1300s the Bohemian Premyslides were on their way to inheriting the crown of Hungary and to grabbing at least a good part of disunited Poland. However, Hungary fell to the Sicilian Anjou who then were able to unite briefly with Poland and with conquests east of the Carpathians. The Luxembourg emperors, the heirs of the Premyslides in Bohemia, secured -- and kept for good -- valuable areas of formerly western Polish territories. However, these 'French' dynasties failed to hold on to their inheritances. It was rather the Lithuanian-Polish princes who first joinged their lands together and successfully expanded both into the east and into the Bohemian-Hungarian region.
This dynastic history was to a great extent the result of a series of misfortunes, such as the extinction one after another of the founding ruling families or their lack of an adult male or an acceptable female heir. However, the need for consderable areas under one sceptre also reflected the relative poverty of many parts of the region, forcing rulers to set their eyes on wealthier territories able to supply revenues sufficient for both defence and expansion. For the monarchs, new conquest also promised income and power independent of the growing influence of barons and noble corporations. In order to counter the power acquired by the great landowners in the thirteenth century, the rulers of the fourteenth were anxious to secure ample income for their treasuries, partly to cover expenses which they incurred while enhancing the status of kingship. Lavish banquets and tournaments at the meetings of sovereigns and royal sponsorship for the arts were as much part of this kind of 'propaganda' as the great care taken with ceremonies and symbols of power.