HEILSBRONN, MONACO DI

HEILSBRONN, Monk of. – Under this name a collection of ascetical works has been handed down, composed by an anonymous Cistercian monk of the abbey of H., near Nuremberg. It may perhaps be identified with Conrad of Brunner.

(II. Bildarchiv d. Ö. Nationalbibliothek) – Choir stalls (1220–50).

The oldest of these treatises is the *Das Buch der sieben Grade* (*Book of the Seven Degrees*), consisting of 2,218 verses, copied in 1390 by the priest Ulrich Cunifex of Eschenbach and preserved in a single manuscript in Heidelberg. The treatise entitled *Liber de corpore et sanguine Domini*, also called *Das Buch von den 6 Namen des Fronleichnams* or *Goldene Zunge*, is written in prose, but has its prologue and conclusion in verse. In the prologue the author gives himself the appellation *der Mönch von H.* (*Monk of H.*), by which he has come down in history. The aforementioned Heidelberg manuscript also contains the *Tochter Syon* (*Daughter of Sion*), in 596 verses, which treats of mystical union with God, and the *Leggenda di Alessio* (*Legend of Alexis*), in 456 verses, whose attribution to the Monk of H. is rather doubtful. On the other hand, the *Das Puch von der Minne* must be considered lost.

BIBL.: J. F. Merzdorf, *Der Mönch von H.*, Berlin 1870; A. Wagner, *Über den Mönch von H.*, Strasbourg 1876; H. Denike, in *Anzeiger für deutsches Altherthum und deutsche Literatur*, 2 (1876), pp. 300–11; G. Wimmer, *Beiträge zur Kritik und Erklärung der Werke des Mönchs von H.*, Karlsburg 1895; C. Böckl, *Wer ist der Mönch von H.?*, in *Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie*, 52 (1928), pp. 230–39.