Wettenhausen Abbey

The Dominican convent of Wettenhausen was an Imperial Abbey of the Augustinian Canons until 1802; today it belongs to the Order of Dominican Sisters. The collegiate church/monastery is located in Wettenhausen in the Middle Swabian municipality of Kammeltal in Bavaria. Ecclesiastically, it belongs to the Diocese of Augsburg.

Foundation

The Abbey of Wettenhausen is first mentioned in 1130, in the foundation charter for Wettenhausen issued by Bishop Hermann von Vohburg. The founders were Lady Gertrud von Roggenstein and her two sons Wernher and Konrad. However, the foundation charter does not precisely state a new monastic foundation, but only the donation of Wettenhausen to the monastery.

According to the in-house chronicle, the monastery was founded in 982 by Countess Gertrud von Roggenstein and her two sons Wernher and Konrad. The Countess wanted to found a monastery for the salvation of her family's souls. She told her sons that she wanted to acquire as much land for the monastery as she could plow in one day. She hung a decorative plow around her neck and rode a horse around a large territory.

The different foundation dates can perhaps be explained by the fact that the foundation of 1130 was preceded by an older foundation. The Augsburg Cathedral Chapter had large possessions in the vicinity of Wettenhausen, especially in Ettenbeuren. Therefore, the first monastery is presumed to have been in Ettenbeuren, perhaps founded in 982. It is assumed that the founding family of Roggenstein gave their moated castle on the Kammel to spiritual hands in 1130, and the monastery was therefore moved to Wettenhausen. The precise information about the foundation before 1130 might have been lost in the turmoil of the Investiture Controversy and is therefore no longer verifiable today.

Secularization

In the course of secularization, it was dissolved in 1803. The library with approximately 9000 volumes went to the Bavarian State Library and the Study Library in Dillingen an der Donau; the collegiate church initially became the seat of the Bavarian Rentamt. In 1864, the Dominican Sisters of St. Ursula in Augsburg received the buildings; they re-established a monastery and set up a school.

The former collegiate church of Mariä Himmelfahrt, which belonged to the Wettenhausen convent, is now the parish church of the municipality of Kammeltal. It originated in the 12th century and was rebuilt in the Baroque style in the 17th century under the direction of Michael Thumb.