Nationality conflicts in the towns started later with the town system growing less flexible. The group of families ruling in a town, going under the scientific name of patricians, jealously guarded its power against the masters of the guilds who demanded a share for themselves. Thus the frictions in the German-Slavonic borderland were not conducive to the creation of a national sentiment, either among all Germans or among Poles or Hungarians. The national consciousness which developed most strongly among the Slavonic peoples in the Middle Ages was that of the Czechs; it also penetrated more deeply and dominated to a greater or lesser degree nearly all strata of society. Another normal phenomenon is a much faster and more buoyant development of national consciousness among national communities facing danger and those who are expanding. State patriotism superceded the differences among nationalities which were relegated to become municipal affairs.