Novara, Vercelli, Asti and Tortona swelled its ranks; only Pavia and Montferrat remained imperialist between.
His army found itself a little to the north of the town near the village of Legnano, when the troops of the city, assisted only by a few allies from Piacenza, Verona, Brescia, Novara and Vercelli, met and overwhelmed it.
Because of it Berengar was condemned as a heretic without being heard, by a synod at Rome and another at Vercelli, both held in 1050.
He took up the task with the greatest zeal, although Berengar had been his personal friend; he was the protagonist of orthodoxy at the councils of Vercelli (1050), Tours (1054) and Rome (1059).
In the meanwhile his son Oddone married Adelaide, eldest daughter and heiress of Odelrico Manfredi, marquess of Susa, a descendant of Arduino of Ivrea, king of Italy, who ruled over the counties of Turin, Auriate, Asti, Bredulo, Vercelli, &c., corresponding roughly to modern Piedmont and part of Liguria (1045).