Clockwise from the north, Pfaffen-Schwabenheim's neighbours are the municipalities of Biebelsheim, Zotzenheim, Sprendlingen, Badenheim, Pleitersheim and Volxheim and the town of Bad Kreuznach.

Dr. Rupprecht from the directorate of the Kulturelles Erbe (“Cultural Heritage”) in Mainz, recognized at first glance the typical piece scored with a metal comb, a technique employed to give opus caementicium a stronger grip.

The document in question only names a place called Suaboheim im Wormsgau, which could just as easily mean Schwabenheim an der Selz.

Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz (d. 1137) then documented that Count Meginhard of Sponheim “in villa que vocatur Suaboheim” (“in the village that is called Schwabenheim”) had transferred the abbey to Archiepiscopal ownership for it to be occupied by Augustinian canons.

The “Pfaffen-” tag first cropped up in a 1248 document, and it has served to distinguish Pfaffen-Schwabenheim from the otherwise like-named village on the River Selz, already mentioned above.

This tribe's original homeland was Swabia (called Schwaben in German), but they eventually spread to what is now Rhenish Hesse.

It cannot be reliably determined when building work on this quire began, but it is highly likely that this happened in the earlier half of the 13th century.

The greater part of Pfaffen-Schwabenheim's municipal area belonged to the abbey, although right from the beginning, there must have been others with landholds here, for according to the Pfaffen-Schwabenheim Weistum (cognate with English wisdom, this was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the Middle Ages and early modern times), a self-administering municipality existed alongside the provost's estate.

When that line then died out only 23 years later in 1437, their joint successors were Electoral Palatinate, the Margraviate of Baden and the Counts of Veldenz-Zweibrücken.

After the partition of the condominium between Baden and Electoral Palatinate in 1707, Pfaffen-Schwabenheim belonged wholly, as part of the Oberamt of Kreuznach, to the latter of those states.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Pfaffen-Schwabenheim, along with other municipalities near the district seat, profited from its real estate potential, which drew many people from nearby Bad Kreuznach to the village who built houses and settled.

In the course of the Reformation, the abbey was dissolved in 1566, but it was revived in 1697 in the course of Palatinate-Neuburg’s Recatholicization policy and occupied by Augustinian canons from Klausen.

1669 at Schloss Dankern in Haren; d. 1740 in Pfaffen-Schwabenheim), all the monastery’s former real estate was let to the Electoral Palatinate ecclesiastical landhold administration, and a lively flurry of building activity ensued.

The Augustinian canons also provided pastoral care to the neighbouring villages of Badenheim, Ober-Hilbersheim, Sprendlingen, Welgesheim and Zotzenheim.

In 1808, in the second round of reorganization of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mainz after the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, the church passed as a chapel of ease to the parish of Badenheim.

With the bull of circumscription, Provida solersque, of 16 August 1821, Pope Pius VII ordered the permanent dissolution of the monastery.

In der oberen Hälfte in Silber die Halbfigur eines Augustiner-Mönches in Vorderansicht, beiderseitig begleitet von einem grünen Weinstock.

Indeed, the coat of arms shown at Pfaffen-Schwabenheim's own website shows both in different tinctures to what is seen in this article (the trellises are brown instead of green, and the book is red instead of silver), while the grapevines themselves have leaves.

[10] The civic arms in this form created by the artist were approved by the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of the Interior by a document issued on 10 June 1953.

Since August 2012 the church has also been a promotional project of the Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz (German Foundation for Monument Protection).

The abbey church itself unites Lower-Rhine and Upper-Rhine Romanesque with elements of the Gothic that came from France into a unique, harmonious ambiance.

The Late Romanesque tapering quire is enclosed by an apse flanked by round towers and was built sometime in the years from 1230 to 1248.

The convent buildings that were built between 1723 and 1764 form a three-winged Baroque complex with mansard roofs and elaborate stucco ceilings of the Mainz school of strapwork.

The highlight among the stucco ceilings is the painted one in the former refectory measuring more than 90 m², which bears inscribed witness to the sponsor of these works, Charles III Philip, Elector Palatine.

Businesses plying other crafts, and some in the service sector, too, are located on 17 ha of land set aside for commercial use, offering local jobs.

Pfaffen-Schwabenheim has a daycare centre with spaces for 75 children aged from 2 to 6 years, split into three mixed-age groups tended by a staff of nine.

Pfaffen-Schwabenheim has a village community centre with seating for up to 300, a public address system, a fully equipped kitchen, a stage and parking.