Today the abbey church and its estate cover a site of approximately 300 hectares which is administered by the Klosterkammer Hannover, a body that operates under the auspices of the Lower Saxony Ministry for Arts and the Sciences [de] to look after reassigned or disused ecclesiastical buildings and other heritage properties in the region.

[1][2][3] The abbey was founded in 1093 by Count Heinrich the Fat of Northeim and his wife Gertrude[4] so that the members of noble families from the area might be buried in a place with monks permanently in attendance.

The late eleventh century was a period of monastic and ecclesiastical reform, and from the outset Bursfelde was influenced by the new ideas coming out of Cluny and Hirsau.

Henry's father, Otto of Nordheim, had previously erected the Bramburg fortress [de] a couple of kilometers upriver, which provided a measure of protection.

[5] In line with the ideals of the still influential monastic reform movement, and with the backing of Archbishop Ruthard of Mainz it was established that abbots should be freely elected.

The granting of market and currency rights to the monastery nevertheless appears to have been part of the founder's strategy for building up the territorial power of the Northeim family in the area.

A further significant development came in 1135 when the founder's daughter, Richenza (whose husband Lothar of Supplingenburg, had become Holy Roman Emperor in 1133) arranged for the construction of the abbey's great "East Choir" ("Ost-Chor").

[5] In 1144 Bursfelde Abbey passed to the control of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony (1139) and later also of Bavaria (1156), following the death of Siegfried IV, a grandson of Otto of Nordheim who had died without male issue.

When in 1424 the aged Albert of Bodenstein became abbot, both church and school had fallen almost into ruins, and the monastery itself was in a dilapidated condition, housing a single old monk.

Dederoth succeeded beyond expectations in the restoration of Bursfelde and began the reform of Reinhausen Abbey, near Göttingen, but died on 6 February 1439, before his efforts in that quarter had borne fruit.

[6] Dederoth's successor, John of Hagen, obtained permission in 1445 from the Council of Basle to restore the Divine Office to the original form of the old Benedictine breviary and to introduce liturgical and disciplinary uniformity in the monasteries that followed the reform of Bursfelde.

At the death of Abbot John of Hagen thirty-six monasteries had already joined the Bursfelde Congregation, and just before the Reformation, at least 136 abbeys, scattered through all parts of Germany, belonged to it.