Heilsbronn, Monastery of

HEILSBRONN, Monastery of. - Under this name a collection of ascetic works has been handed down, owed to an anonymous Cistercian monk of the abbey of H., near Nuremberg. He is perhaps to be identified with Conrad of Brundelsheim (v.). Among the authors cited, including St. Bernard and the scholastics, there is also Conrad Soccus, abbot of H. from 1303 to 1321. It is therefore more than probable that the M. of H. is from the first half of the 14th century. The style, moreover, is that of central Germany, with traces of the Bavarian dialect.

The oldest of these treatises is Das Buch der sieben Grade ("Book of the Seven Degrees") of 2218 verses, copied in 1390 by the priest Ulrich Cunifex of Eschenbach and preserved in a single manuscript at Heidelberg. The treatise entitled Liber de corpore et sanguine Domini, also called Das Buch von den 6 Namen des Fronleichnams, or also 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. ("M. of H."), by which he has passed into history. The aforementioned Heidelberg manuscript also preserves the Tochter Syon ("Daughter of Zion") in 596 verses, which treats of the mystical union with God, and the Legend of St. Alexis, in 436 verses, whose attribution to the M. of H. is rather doubtful. The Das Puch von der Minne must instead be considered lost.

Francesco Russo