It has been called the earliest form of the Vagina Monologues – an argument in verse between a woman and her vulva, originating in the Middle Ages.

Now a fragment of the text, about who gives more pleasure to men, dates the poem to 200 years earlier than previously thought.

Medievalists are thrilled by the find, in the archive of an Austrian monastery, which rewrites the history of sexuality in medieval literature. Fragments from 60 lines of The Rose Thorn (Der Rosendorn) were discovered on a thin strip of parchment in the library of the baroque Melk Abbey on the banks of the Danube in Austria’s Wachau Valley.

The abbey find means that the poem can now be dated to about 1300. Until the parchment discovery it was believed that Der Rosendorn had not been composed until the end of the Middle Ages, about two centuries later. Two existing versions of the poem, known as the Dresden Codex and the Karlsruhe Codex, are a constant fascination for medievalists who consider it one of the first ever erotic poems.

In the poem, a virgin woman (junkfrouwe) argues in a free-flowing, often witty dialogue, with her speaking vulva (fud) about which of them is held in the higher regard by men.

The virgin argues that it is by her looks that men are won over, whilst the vulva, accusing the virgin of putting too much stress on her appearance, says it is she who provides the true pleasure. The two decide to part company, but find themselves deeply unhappy and so reunite to allay their suffering. They conclude that they are better together, as a person and their sex are quite simply inseparable.

It is not known who the poem’s author was, or whether male or female.

Christine Glaßner, of the Institute of Medieval Research at Austria’s Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), who discovered the fragment, said that while the text at first glance appeared absurd, “at its core is an incredibly clever story, because of the very fact that it demonstrates that you cannot separate a person from their sex”, she told Austrian media. The parchment on which the poem fragment was found had been used to bind a theological Latin text, a practice that was not unusual at the time, to recycle the valuable material. There is no evidence of any attempt to destroy the text because of its erotic content.

The fragment, measuring 22cm by 1.5cm, was identified as being from Der Rosendorn by Nathanael Busch of Siegen University in Germany, who worked with academics from the ÖAW and the universities of Mainz and Marburg to decipher the few words visible per line.