These records of fourteenth-century nuns and mystics reveal the intense physicality of their beliefs and practices. These sister-books illustrate the importance of images in the nuns' meditations on the suffering of Christ. The devotional art of the convent frequently focused on the suffering of Christ. Images of the Crucifixion, the Man of Sorrows in which Christ reveals his wounds to the viewer, and the Pièta in which Mary holds the body of the dead Christ were common.
These Dominican nuns often had visions specifically relating to works of art, and miracles connected with works of art, both sculpted and painted. In the Diessenhofen Sister-Book, a bleeding crucifix figure comes to life after intense meditation. It is likely that the art which surrounded these women inspired many of their visions, and in some cases their visions inspired the art around them.
These Dominican nuns also had visions of the crucifix as the tree of salvation or tree of life. A vision recounted in the Weiler sister-book illustrates this.
One morning I went into the choir early. There I saw, standing before the altar, a green blossoming tree which was full of noble fruit. Then my heart and were drawn upwards, and I was given to understand that the tree was the cross and its fruit was the body and blood of our Lord.
The thirteenth-century mystic, Mechtild of Magdebourg, as well as a late thirteenth-century beguine who lived in Cologne, Christine von Stommeln, had already had visions of Christ as the Lignum Vitae. Many female mystics were also influenced by the writings of St. Bonaventure and passages in Pseudo-Bonaventure that discussed this motif. These visions of Christ as the Tree of Life further reinforce the importance of Christ's Passion to the culture as a whole, and especially to the individual mystic. Visions of Christ as the Tree of Life reflect the positive attitude taken toward the suffering and Passion of Christ in the fourteenth century. A number of fourteenth-century nuns had visions of being embraced by the crucified Christ. These visions may have been inspired by the Song of Songs and by bridal mysticism of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Adelheid von Weiblingen, a nun at Weiler, had a mystical vision of the embrace of the crucified Christ.
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