Even today, despite all the structural changes conversions for different uses, the monastery founded in 1138 by the local lords Berengar and Konrad of "Schuozenried" still has the appearance of a typical monastery complex of the Premonstratensian Order. Between a southern convent tract from the Late Middle Ages and a northern tract from the Baroque period lies a sacral building with foundations dating back over 800 years, a Late Romanesque pier basilica. In 1440 the monastery was raised to the status of an abbey, and as a consequence Abbot Heinrich Österreicher decided to have the Monastery Church (Klosterkirche) redesigned.
Over the centuries the in the beginning small properties of the Order developed into an immediate monastery state with an area of nearly 4,100 hectares (10,000 acres) that knew how to manage its affairs. Imperial and papal privileges, as well as confirmations and donations which earned the monastery landholdings, dominion over several areas and church patronages.
They monastery's heyday came to an abrupt end with the Thirty Years' War. Swedish troops set fires, destroyed the church nave and devastated the monastic territory in 1647. In 1748 the famous Rococo architect Dominikus Zimmermann was commissioned to plan a new monastery complex. The planning model of the master builder has survived the ravages of time and can be viewed today in the new Monastery (Neues Kloster). Contemporaries like the Benedictine monk Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger admired the impressive draft, "If this convent should one day be executed according to the beautiful plans shown to us, then it must be one of the most splendid in Germany."
The monastery with a medieval character was to be rebuilt to a four-wing complex in the style of the High Baroque.
In 1749 the Convent resolved to build the new monastery, "on 9 April 1749 it was capitularly proposed and resolved that a new monastery be built, as such has already been immediately designed by our architect Jaokob Emele." The local monastery architect Jakob Emele realized the Baroque complex under Abbot Magnus Kleber. The heart is the Library Hall (Bibliothekssaal). However, in 1763 the project was abandoned after only a third had been realized due to heavy indebtedness.
The monastery continued to be the spiritual and secular focus of a well organized, small monastery state. The canons preached in the surrounding parish churches and taught at the monastery school known far beyond Schussenried. Their subject-matter included not only the subjects Religion, Latin and History, but also Algebra and Geometry, Garden Art, Drama, Music and Beer Brewing.
In the course of Secularization from 1803 on Schussenried Monastery was disbanded. The monastery's last abbot, Siard Berchtold, fled from the approaching French troops and brought part of the monastery treasure to Tyrol. The monastery as an autonomous dominion fell to the dynasty of the imperial counts of von Sternberg-Manderscheid and became a palace.
In 1806 the complex together with its territory fell under Württemberg sovereignty. The complete sale to the royal family then took place in 1835, which decided on a public use of the monastery area and built an iron smelting plant in 1840. In the remaining monastery buildings a "Königliche Heil- und Pflegeanstalt" (Royal Sanitarium and Nursing Home). It was not until 1997 that the "Psychiatrisches Landeskrankenhaus" (State Psychiatric Hospital) vacated most of the monastery buildings. Today it is an academy and service center. more