Sankt Pölten Cathedral grew from religious buildings believed to date from around 790, when a Benedictine monastery was established. The monastery became a possession of the Diocese of Passau in 828. A Magyar invasion after about 907 almost entirely destroyed it, and it was rebuilt after the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. A charter from Emperor Otto II in 976 gives the first documentary reference.
The abbey church was rebuilt around 1150 with three naves, no transept and a westwork with two towers. It was rebuilt again from 1267 to 1280 after a fire. After another fire, it was recast in its present Baroque style after 1621. The article calls it a well-preserved late Romanesque structure that is Baroque in appearance.
Joseph II's reforms dissolved the abbey in 1784, and the church has been the cathedral of the Diocese of Sankt Pölten since 1785.
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