Welf the Fifth's was a brief reign--and about the only pacific one in that early period. A staunch friend to the Pope, but at the same time strictly loyal to the Emperor, he managed to overcome resistance, say the monks of Weingarten, "by liberality and graciousness rather than by cruelty and force." His brother, Henry, surnamed variously "the Black," and "the Great," was a man of entirely different mould. He it was who about 1100 first acquired by marriage with Wulfhilde, the daughter of Magnus, Duke of Saxony, the valuable "allodium" of Lüneburg, which up to 1866 formed the nucleus of Guelph possessions in Northern Germany. Henry's son, Henry the Generous, bettered that example by obtaining the Saxon Dukedom. He was a staunch friend to Lothair of Saxony, the Emperor of his time--married his daughter Gertrude--and in his support made war upon the Hohenstaufens, who had seized, without claim or title, Imperial territory, more especially the city of Nuremberg. In 1126 his troops carried Nuremberg by storm, and as a reward Lothair conferred the Dukedom of Saxony upon his son-in-law, who thereby came to hold two dukedoms at the same time. The victory over the Hohenstaufens was completed a few years later by Henry's capture (on behalf of the Empire) of Ulm. Clearly Henry was altogether in the right. But the Hohenstaufens, smarting under deserved defeat, seized the opportunity of his absence--in Italy, where he was, to attend the Emperor's coronation--to ravage his lands in revenge. Of course, he retaliated. And thus was begun that memorable great feud which rent Germany in two and brought it down to the very brink of ruin and disintegration. The sad result might still have been averted if the general expectation had been fulfilled, and Henry the Generous had been elected to the Imperial throne. So confident was Lothair of his succession that at his death he entrusted the Imperial insignia--those precious _clenodia_ of Trifels--to him for keeping. But the Hohenstaufens baulked him by a clever election trick. Summoning the Electing Princes--a very indeterminate body at that time--with the exception only of the Bavarians and the Saxons, privately to Coblenz--not by any means a proper place for the purpose--they easily secured the choice of Conrad, in which the Saxons weakly acquiesced--being then still new to the rule of their Duke--and which the Pope, just as weakly, confirmed. Little he knew what a scourge he was binding for the punishment of his successors. Those two confirmations practically decided the issue. Nevertheless, so little assured did Conrad feel of his position that he fled from Augsburg by night, fearing an attack from the Guelphists. Arrived at Würzburg, contrary to all law and justice, he condemned Henry unheard, proclaimed against him the sentence of proscription (_reichsacht_), and declared him to have forfeited both his Duchies. A furious contest ensued, Welf VI. fighting in Bavaria, Henry in Saxony.