Also of especial note is the Welfenchronik, written and illustrated in about 1190, chronicling and glorifying the House of Welf which had its seat at Ravensburg nearby.

[citation needed] It acquired territory of 306 km2 (118 sq mi), stretching from the Allgäu to the Bodensee and including many forests and vineyards, and was one of the richest monasteries in southern Germany.

The bones of nine members of the House of Welf, from which the English royal family also descends, are buried here in a single sarcophagus made of granite marble.

The monks are responsible for the management of the "Blutritt", or pilgrimage to the Reliquary of the Holy Blood in the abbey church; they also run a guesthouse.

The abbey was vacated on October 16, 2010; the Catholic Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart stepped in as a new tenant and tried to find a new monastic community to install here.

Due to dilapidated sanitary installations and issues of monument protection this was declined at first; instead parts of the rooms used by the Academy of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart (see below) were rededicated as refugees home.

In July and August 2015 a part of the former abbey rooms was cut off and prepared to serve as additional Bedarfsorientierte Erstaufnahmeeinrichtung (BEA) (auxiliary first admittance/initial reception facility for refugees).

[6] The church was intended to stand within a monastic site built to the ideal layout, but this undertaking was only partially completed as the north wing would have blocked the via regia or imperial road.

Its legend runs thus: Longinus, the soldier who opened Jesus's side with a lance, caught some of the Sacred Blood and preserved it in a leaden box, which later he buried at Mantua.

Being miraculously discovered in 804, the relic was solemnly exalted by Pope Leo III, but again buried during the Hungarian and Norman invasions.

Numerous scholars have detailed the various chronological and political problems with this narrative, which was fabricated in order to imbue the relic with cultural grandeur and legitimacy.

The reliquary, formerly of solid gold, set with numerous jewels, and valued at about 70,000 florins, was confiscated by the Government at the suppression of the monastery and replaced by a gilded copper imitation.