The whole region was not only strategically situated but was also from an early period a highly productive centre for ore extraction and metal working, which made it unusually valuable.
At various times the monastery or the Vogtei (or both) was given, generally along with Heidenheim, to the Counts of Helfenstein or the rulers of Württemberg or Austria, and different emperors alternately granted it away in exchange for favours or mortgaged it, and then restored it to independence.
In 1513 Melchior Ruff became abbot of Königsbronn and for the first time in its history was able to put it on a stable financial and political footing.
The town of Königsbronn was destroyed in 1552 during the Schmalkaldic War and in the following year the monastery was forcibly Lutheranised; the Roman Catholic monks were expelled.
The church contains the monument of Anna Beatrix von Schlüsselburg (d. 1355), wife of Count Ulrich IX of Helfenstein, a great patroness and protector of the abbey.