Our HISTORY
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According to tradition, our abbey was founded around the year 772 by the Duke of Bavaria, Tassilo III (746-788).
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Bishop Virgil of Salzburg consecrated the church on September 1, 782.
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Around 850, Blessed Irmengard (831/33-866) was the first abbess known by name to head the abbey.
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This period under the ruling Carolingian dynasty was abruptly interrupted by the Hungarian invasions in the first half of the 10th century.
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Due to the Investiture Controversy, the abbey lost its imperial immediacy in the middle of the 11th century. Archbishop Anno of Cologne donated the abbey to the Archbishop of Salzburg in 1062.
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In 1254, the Bavarian dukes finally gained the right to Frauenwörth. As a remnant of the old imperial immediacy, the abbey retained the name "Royal Foundation" until the secularization of 1803 and was reserved for the daughters of the nobility.
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During the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), Magdalena Haidenbucher (1609-1650) rose to power as a pious and strong-willed woman. The monastery became a refuge for other women's convents in Bavaria that were ravaged by the war.
(a animated portrait of the abbess
with audio sample from her diary)
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In 1722/30, the monastery buildings were rebuilt from scratch and larger than before under Abbess Irmengard von Scharfsedt (1702-1733).
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In 1803, the abbey was dissolved as part of secularization. The nuns were allowed to stay. Five of them lived to see the abbey rebuilt in 1838 under King Ludwig I of Bavaria.
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In 1901, the monastery was again elevated to an abbey, making it, alongside Nonnberg in Salzburg, the oldest existing German-speaking women's monastery north of the Alps.
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In 1986, the women's abbeys of Nonnberg in Salzburg, Frauenwörth in Chiemsee, Sankt Walburg in Eichstätt, Sankt Gertrud in Tettenweis, Maria Frieden in Kirchschletten, the Priory of Saint Emma in Greensburg (USA) and in 2023 the Priory of Saint Mildred in Minster (UK) joined together to form the Federation of Bavarian Benedictine Abbeys (FBBA).