Contributions in this volume from archaeology and history deal with the question of what effect external pressure might have had in decentralised political structures with personalised rule in the European empires of the 10th century.One of the most important findings is that the concrete effects of external threats are hard to grasp, and the archaeological findings do not give a clear picture. The traditionally assumed causal links between external incursions and crisis phenomena are obviously just as unacceptable as the assumption that the Hungarian incursions would have had a lasting impact on existing structures.