He was a student at St. Elizabeth and Mary Magdalene Gymnasium in Breslau. Thanks to patrons who supported him financially, he matriculated at the University of Leipzig in the summer of 1562. Like his early mentors Joachim Camerarius and Victorinus Strigel, Monau initially identified with the Philippist Lutheran faction although, like many Philippists, in time he moved toward a Reformed Protestant theological position. After 1569 he moved to Frankfurt (Oder), Wittenberg, Heidelberg, Tübingen and then again to Wittenberg. In winter 1573, he was to have enrolled at the University of Jena and appears to have enrolled at the University of Padua later that year. In 1574 he was in Geneva and in 1575 again in Heidelberg.
