The Wild Man's oeuvre is limited in size (1584 ll. in total) but, nevertheless, quite varied. Four of his works are known: Veronica (660 ll.), Vespasian (278 ll.), Van der Girheit (424 ll.) and Von christlicher Lêre (222 ll.).

In the works of the Wild Man, legendary narrative and didactic-moralizing discourse come together. Until then, poets known by name in the religious sphere had mainly limited themselves to a single genre (e.g. Ava, Lamprecht, Heinrich von Melk and Wernher vom Niederrhein). The mix of two or more substantive genres within a single oeuvre seems to be typical of the last quarter of the twelfth century, as in the case of Heinrich von Veldeke and Hartmann von Aue. The latter in particular combines courtly literature (Erec, Iwein) with the moralising genre (Klagebüchlein) and with the legend (Gregorius).

Who was this ‘Wild Man’?67 According to Franz Pfeiffer,68 the name ‘Wilder Mann’ is not a pseudonym, but a proper name that has also been found in other places in the forms ‘Wildenman’, ‘Wildeman’ and ‘Wildman’. In any case, we must try to understand him as a poet who had a twofold literary orientation: the legend, and ethical-didactic literature. His work can therefore be compared, on the one hand, to that of his contemporaries who mainly have Christian ethics in mind, such as Wernher vom Niederrhein or Heinrich von Melk, and on the other hand, to legends from the same period such as the Albanus and Pilate legends or the legends from the Kaiserchronik. Until quite recently, the work of the Wild Man received hardly any particular notice; it was considered one element of the relatively large stream of religious works of the twelfth century which, from a literary point of view, could hardly be seen as very exciting. This view has been changed by publications which, using a wide range of secondary literature, demonstrate the literary-historical importance of this type of texts. The author's ‘Sitz im Leben’, his religious attitude towards his sources and the particular use of these in a new text are today of special interest.