extended far beyond the lands immediately affected and the limits of
medieval history. The new colonies laid the foundations of modern
Prussia and modern Saxony. To their existence is due the connection of
Poland and Bohemia with the state system of medieval Europe, and the
consequent division of the Slavonic peoples into a western and an
eastern group; the westward expansion of the Russian Empire was
forestalled and prevented by these early pioneers of German and of Roman
influence. Only less important was the German advance along the Danube,
from the river Inn to Vienna and the Hungarian frontier, which was
mainly directed by successive heads of the family of Babenberg
(971-1246), first as Margraves and afterwards as Dukes of Austria. The
Hapsburg power, like that of the Hohenzollerns, is partly an inheritance
from medieval frontiersmen who drove a German wedge into the heart of a
Slavonic territory.

The history of these German colonies often reminds us how naturally such
business ventures came to be regarded as a species of crusade. In 1147 a
large body of German pilgrims, enlisted for the Second Crusade, were
allowed to fulfil their vows by serving against the Slav in the armies
of Saxony and Brandenburg. The Babenberg dukes, grown weary of their
monotonous work on the Danube, roamed eastward to conquer Egypt or
Palestine, westward to exterminate the Albigensians of Languedoc and the
infidels in Spain. And when we turn from Germany to the Spanish
peninsula, the alliance between religious fervour and commercial
enterprise is still more striking. The Christian reconquest of Spain and
Portugal began two or three generations before the Council of Clermont;
but, from the first, the southward advance against the rulers of Cordova
foreshadows the age of the Crusades. In Spain, as in the German marks,
the pioneers of Christendom were often ruffianly, and always fought with
an eye to the main chance. Among them are mere desperadoes like the Cid