Frederick I Barbarossa appointed the noble Degenhard von Hellenstein as Prokurator (Governor) for the Duchy of Swabia while his son was underage.

The Danish princess could be Ingeborg —whose assumed birth year was around 1175 and would fit with the repudiated child bride—, who later had an unhappy marriage with King Philip II of France.

The Emperor's sons and many princes, who followed their example and did not want to be inferior to them in this respect, gave the knights and minstrels gifts in the form of horses, precious clothes, gold and silver.

In his journey he arrived to the Kingdom of Hungary, where he was betrothed to Constance, a daughter of King Béla III, an ally of Barbarossa.

[13] Frederick VI's early death in the Crusade prevented the marriage from proceeding; some years later, in 1198, Constance became in the second wife of King Ottokar I of Bohemia.

Following his father's death on 10 June 1190 in the Saleph River in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, Frederick VI took command of the German forces and led them south towards Antioch.

In Tripoli, a large part of his companions became ill on malaria, which is why only around 700 knights arrived with him in early October 1190 to besiege the city of Acre.