Several difficulties stood in the way of the union of the various states formed in Spain by the Reconquest; the diversity of its points of departure was the principal. Navarre and Catalonia were in particularly close contact with France, and the marriage of Ramón Berenguer the Great with Dulcia, heiress of Provence, made the relations between the peoples of the "langue d'oc" so close that the subsequent development of Catalonia was connected rather with that of the South of France. In Navarre, again, when the dynasty of Sancho the Elder became extinct, the Crown passed in succession to the houses of Blois (1234), of France, and of Évreux (1349–1441), with the result that Navarre, until the fifteenth century, lived in much closer relations with the French monarchy than with the Spanish states. On the other hand, the feudal usages introduced in the Western Kingdoms by the House of Navarre brought about repeated partitions of states. Ferdinand I divided his kingdom into five parts, Castile, León, Galicia, Zamora, and Toro, though, in the event his son Sancho the Strong despoiled his brothers and restored the kingdom to unity. But Alonso VII, the Emperor, again separated Castile and León, leaving the former to his son Sancho, and the latter to Ferdinand.