Following the disintegration of the Great Moravian Empire at the turn of the 10th century, the Hungarians annexed the territory comprising modern Slovakia. After their defeat on the river Lech, the Hungarians abandoned their nomadic ways and settled in the centre of the Carpathian valley, slowly adopting Christianity and began to build a new state — the Hungarian kingdom. Slovaks seemed to play an important role during the developement of the realm. as evident by large number of loanwords into hungarian language, concerning primarily economical, agricultural or metalurgy fields.