For the thirty-five years before its transformation under the effects of the battle of Mohács, Europe east of the frontiers of the Empire and north of the lines reached at that date by the Turkish armies fell into two parts, sharply distinguished politically and even psychologically: on the one hand, the Russian lands which the grand dukes of Moscow were welding into a compact, disciplined and self-regarding world on its own; on the other, the vast and complex area comprising the kingdoms of Poland-Lithuania, Hungary and Bohemia—for the connection between Bohemia and the Empire was during this period purely technical, whereas it was intimately joined with Hungary and in close relationship with Poland. These three kingdoms were linked together, albeit loosely and, as the future was to prove, transiently, by dynastic ties; the Crowns of Hungary and Bohemia were united, and that of Poland held by brothers or uncles of the Hungarian king, all these rulers belonging to the Polish-Lithuanian house of Jagiello. The principality of Moldavia alternated between semi-independence and vassalage, now to the Porte, now to Hungary, now to Poland.

It is permissible to confine our account of the easternmost of these two divisions to a very few words, for the rise of Moscow and the growth, round the Muscovite nucleus, of the Russian State, in which the whole history of this area resides, were processes which had begun long before 1490 and were not completed until long after 1526: the period described here constitutes only a term in a steady progression. It was, indeed, a brilliant one.