It appears to be a composite work, compiled from pieces written while the expedition was underway with a preface and an appendix added.
It provides a nearly day-to-day account of the expedition as it crossed the Balkans and Anatolia before the sudden death of Frederick I in a swimming accident.
Frederick's son and successor, the Emperor Henry VI, who died in September 1197, is referred to throughout as living.
Parts of the work appear to have been written contemporaneously with events, as shown by references to certain persons as still living (e.g., Count Philip of Flanders, who died at the siege of Acre in 1191).
[1] In the Milevsko manuscript, Abbot Gerlach [de] added a notice of the work's title and authorship: "The History of the Expedition of the Emperor Frederick, written by an Austrian cleric who was present on this same".
[1] The preface of the History quotes several other texts at length: Pope Gregory VIII's bull Audita tremendi, calling for the Third Crusade; an anonymous letter to the master of the Hospitallers in Italy, Archumbald, describing the Battle of Hattin, one of the most important sources for that battle;[3] and a letter of the steward of the Hospitallers in Jerusalem, Hermengar, to Duke Leopold V of Austria, detailing Saladin's conquests in northern Syria in 1188.
The central section of the History shows evidence of having been composed in parts out of reports sent back to Germany by the army.
The third section, beginning from 29 March 1190, quotes extensively from an eyewitness account, the diary of the Bavarian cleric Tageno.
[6] In contrast to the History of the Pilgrims, it names dates and places, allowing the reader to trace the army's march and even to calculate its speed (20 kilometres [12 mi] per day in hostile territory).