The Zähringer attempted to expand their territories in Swabia and Burgundy into a fully recognized duchy, but their expansion was halted in the 1130s due to their feud with the Welfs.

Pursuing their territorial ambitions, the Zähringer founded numerous cities and monasteries on either side of the Black Forest, as well as in the western Swiss Plateau.

However, this dignity was only a titular one, and Berthold subsequently lost it when, in the course of the Investiture Controversy, he joined the rising of his former rival Rudolf of Rheinfelden against German king Henry IV in 1073.

In 1098, he reconciled with Frederick, renounced all claims to Swabia and instead concentrated on his possessions in the Breisgau region, assuming the title of Duke of Zähringen.

Renaud prevailed, although he had to cede large parts of the eastern Transjuranian lands to Conrad, who thereupon was appointed by Emperor Lothair III as a 'rector' of the Imperial Kingdom of Burgundy-Arles.

Duke Berthold IV (d. 1186), who followed his father Conrad and founded the Swiss city of Fryburg (today's Fribourg-Freiburg) in 1157, spent much of his time in Italy in the train of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa.

The extinction of the counts of Lenzburg in 1173 strengthened the Zähringer position south of the Rhine, but their territorial expansion was halted following their support of the Welfs in the unsuccessful feud against Conrad III of Germany during 1138–1152.

This included their policy of expanding settlements into fortified towns or cities and the construction of new castles, mostly in their territories north of the Rhine.

Their encroachment on the rights of the comital nobility south of the Rhine seems to have been resisted, mostly passively, but in the case of the lords of Glâne and Thun in an open revolt in 1191.

The fragmentation of the Zähringer possessions after 1218 was an important factor in the communal movements of the late medieval period in the region, including the imperial immediacy of Bern and Zürich, and the growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy in the early 14th century.

Francis' daughter Mary of Teck (1867–1953), as the wife of King George V, became Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India.

This branch of the family died out in the male line in 1981 and in its entirety in 1994 with the death of Francis's granddaughter, Lady Mary Abel Smith.