Frederick I likely suggested the marriage because the County of Burgundy would give him an alternative to the Brenner Pass and a strategically valuable position against Milan, and because of the additional troops of Burgundian knights available for his war.

A legend states that in 1158 Beatrice visited Milan where was just conquered by Frederick, but was taken captive in a sally by the enraged Milanese and forced to ride backwards through the city on a donkey in a humiliating manner until getting out.

Some sources of this legend indicate that Barbarossa implemented his revenge for this insult by forcing the magistrates of the city to remove a fig from the anus of a donkey using only their teeth.

[4] Another source states that Barbarossa took his wrath upon every able-bodied man in the city, and that it was not a fig they were forced to hold in their mouth, but excrement from the donkey.

To add to this debasement, they were made to announce, "Ecco la fica" (meaning "behold the fig"), with the faeces still in their mouths.

[5] Beatrice at least once played a role in warfare: during the Siege of Crema in July 1159, she was able to provide the emperor with badly needed reinforcements from her own county of Burgundy, and arrived to Crema on 20 July of that year in the company of Henry the Lion, archbishop Conrad of Augsburg and 1,200 knights, providing him with the reinforcements he needed.

The emperor having escaped,[2] the empress stayed in hostile Susa until 1168, presumably imprisoned until permitted to depart, while there is no detailed record of how she was treated during this period.

The English chronicler Ralph of Diceto noted about their relationship, that "Although Frederick was always most constant in adversity, he was nevertheless reputed by many to be uxurious... and seeking how to please her in all things."

[2] Archbishop Conrad II of Salzburg promised money and gifts in hope that the empress would help him regain imperial favour through mediation.

[6] After the Peace of Venice of 1177, according to the treaty, Beatrice would no longer be referred to as Imperatrix ('empress') in the chancery productions, as her coronation as such had been made by an anti-pope and was thus declared nullified.

The reason as to why Beatrice was crowned in Vienne is unknown: it is speculated that this was made as a compensation because the Peace of Venice had formally nullified her coronation as empress, as it had been performed by an anti-pope, but it could also have been to signal her new role as that of resident ruling Palatine Countess of Burgundy, as she seems to have stayed to govern Burgundy from this year forward rather than continue to follow Frederick.

Instead, Beatrice seems to have stayed in Burgundy, for the first time governing the county by herself: there are extant charters of her own before 1181, but nine between that year and her death, all of them concerning Burgundian affairs.

Many of her Burgundian charters were witnessed by her younger son Otto, who was her designated heir to her own title, Count Palatine of Burgundy, and his teacher, who was evidently there with her.

[11] The early development of the German tradition of minnesang is associated with Beatrice and the French troubadours she brought to Barbarossa's court, especially Guyot de Provins.

Frederick grieved for her early death, and in April 1189, a month before joining the Crusade, he donated to the Church of St. Etienne in Besançon.