According to the monastery chronicles authored by Abbot Ermanrich (d. 874), who became Bishop of Passau, the abbey was established in Alamannia about 764 by Herulph and his brother Ariolf, both documented as Chorbishops of Langres.

In 981 the imperial monastery had to provide Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor with 30 armored riders free of charge for his campaigns in Italy.

During the Hussite Wars, the abbey was required, along with other ecclesiastical institutions, to provide a military contingent, complete with horses, weapons, armor, and wagons for Frederick I, Elector of Brandenburg's campaign of August 1431.

On 14 January 1460 with the consent of Pope Pius II it was converted into a college of secular Canons Regular under the rule of a provost.

[4] The provost of Ellwangen achieved the status of a Prince of the Empire (Reichsfürst), who not only ruled over an immediate territory but also held a direct vote (votum virile) in the Reichstag assembly.

In reaction to the Protestant Reformation, the provostry joined the Catholic League in 1609; it was occupied by Swedish troops during the Thirty Years' War in 1632, but again vacated after the 1634 Battle of Nördlingen.

Nothing is known of Ellwangen's property during the period of its Benedictine history, but after it had passed into the hands of the secular canons, its possessions included the court manor of Ellwangen, the manors of Jagstzell, Neuler, Rötlen, Tannenberg, Wasseralfingen, Abtsgmünd, Kochenburg near the town of Aalen, Heuchlingen on the River Lein, and Bühlertann where the abbey had a number of holdings.

The present-day Late Romanesque Basilika St. Vitus (Ellwangen) [de] was consecrated in 1233, after a 12th-century preceding building had been devastated by a blaze.