For four hundred years Hungary was treated as a Roman province like any other, its laws and customs as an independent kingdom ignored. Though it did prosper from trade, as most of the trade routes between Romania and northern Europe passed through its territory, it was also repeatedly ravaged by war due to its vulnerability as a border province and its distance from Romania's heartlands. From the mid-16th century Romania's involvement in the Forty Years' War resulted in the destruction of most of the main Hungarian cities and cut the trade routes, and this, combined with the Kantakouzenid dynasty's centralisation of power, resulted in the impoverishment of the country amidst widespread discontent.