The Monk cites St. Bonaventure and Albert the Great (d. 1280) and draws largely on the works of Conrad of Brundelsheim (Soccus), Abbot of Heilsbronn in 1303 (d. 1321).
The first, in verse, is "The Book of the Seven Degrees" (Das Buch der siben Grade), which comprises 2218 lines, and has only been preserved in the manuscript of Heidelberg, transcribed in 1390 by a priest, Ulric Currifex of Eschenbach.
Dated 1335–1340 by paper-analysis and existing watermark, the 179-page script is said to be the oldest paper manuscript fully written in the German language ever found.
The title of the treatise is the "Liber de corpore et sanguine Domini" (or "Das Puch on den VI namen des Fronleichnams", or also the "Goldene Zunge").
The first of these is "The Daughter of Sion" (Tochter Syon), a short poem of 596 lines, in the Alamannian dialect, rich in matter and full of emotion; it treats of the mystical union of the soul with God, a common theme in the poetry of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.