After many years Ulrich I, Count of Lenzburg, restored the abbey to prosperity and a sound economic footing by numerous gifts of property.

Also, by exchanges of land and rights of patronage he created a stable and unified ecclesiastical and parochial structure in the foundation's immediate vicinity.

Although the German Kaiser confirmed the abbey's rights in 1442, the connection to the Holy Roman Empire was broken; Glarus and Schwyz considered themselves from that point onwards as successors to the royal Vögte.

Despite further attempts to reform the abbey's monastic life, there was no compulsion to take vows and only women of the aristocracy were accepted as community members.

After the end of the Old Swiss Confederacy in 1798 Schänis Abbey, by the operation of the Act of Mediation of 1803, lost all its feudal rights and was gradually forced to dispose of all possessions outside the canton of St. Gallen.