The Cistercian monastery was founded in 1147, when the monks moved to the Mulenbrunnen site, and Archbishop Arnold I of Trier consecrated the abbey church in 1178. The complex was built in the Romanesque Hirsau style native to Swabia.
Gothic influence arrived near the end of the 12th century. From 1210 to 1220 an architect trained in Paris built what the article calls Germany's first Gothic architecture, at the narthex, the southern part of the cloister and the monks' refectory. Late Gothic work dates from the late 13th to mid-14th century, and there is very limited Renaissance architecture.
A stone wall, a drawbridge gate and five towers protected the monastery from the 13th century. The complex now houses an Evangelical seminary and boarding school, and a literary museum highlights alumni Johannes Kepler, Friedrich Hölderlin and Hermann Hesse. UNESCO inscribed it in 1993.
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