In 1183, two brothers, Berengar and Konrad von Schussenried, unmarried members of the House of Hohenstaufen,[1][2] donated their holdings – a castle, two nearby mills, a parish church, and even their family coat of arms[1] – to the Premonstratensian Order.

[1] A dispute began at this time with the Barons of Wartenberg [de] that resulted in Schussenried's monks fleeing to Weissenau Abbey, where they sought the legal aid of Pope Celestine III.

[2] In 1240, Schussenried was freed from having to recognize a vogt, though it still received, in 1452, the protection of the knight Georg, Truchsess von Waldburg.

These men were educated at Schussenried and other Premonstratensian monasteries, though most of them after 1550 were taught by the Jesuits at the Study Church of the Assumption [de] in Dillingen an der Donau, and some acquired degrees from the universities of Tübingen, Freiburg, Heidelberg, and Rome.

Abbot Matthäus Rohrer, in office from 1621 to 1653, reconstructed the eastern portion of the monastery until the outbreak of an illness in 1628 amongst the monks later attributed to poisoned wine.

[2] In 1700, Abbot Tiberius Mangold commissioned the Austrian architect Christian Thumb [de] to create a plan for a new abbey church.

Further work was made impossible by the War of the Spanish Succession, which began in 1701 and cost the monastery 297,000 gulden between the quartering of soldiers and monetary seizures.

It wasn't until 1714 that Abbot Tiberius was able to continue his renovations, placing an order for new choir stalls from the master Swabian woodcarver Georg Anton Machein [de].

[4] Zimmerman and his brother Johann Baptist had already worked for Schussenried Abbey at Steinhausen pilgrimage church [de] from 1727 to 1733.

[1] In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte annexed the Left Bank of the Rhine, and compensated disadvantaged German princes with the territories of smaller states in the former Holy Roman Empire.

Three years later, Sternberg-Manderscheid was mediatized into the newly raised Kingdom of Württemberg,[8] to whom the Counts sold the Abbey on 1 April 1835.

[1] King William I, as part of his social welfare programs, established a foundry in 1840 and a nursing home in 1875 on the abbey grounds.

[13] Premonstratensians from other Swabian monasteries who worked at Schussenried included Georg Anton Machein [de], who crafted choir stalls for the abbey.

[12] The Library Hall is two stories tall, with walls lined with largely decorative bookcases, some containing fold-out desks.

The ceiling fresco, painted in 1757 by Franz Georg Hermann, depicts in 14 scenes[14] like the attempted flight of Caspar Mohr [de], a Premonstratensian monk and polymath.

[15] 24 alabaster sculptures fashioned in 1766 by Fidelis Sporer [de] line the ground floor of the Library Hall.

Earth is represented by a globe, water by buckets, wheels, and pulleys, and mills, fire by the use of a mirror and sunlight to burn wood, and air by Neptune wielding a trident.

[11] The original, flat ceiling was replaced with a vaulted one, round windows installed, and the preceding Romanesque and Gothic embellishments covered with stucco.

[18] The ceiling fresco was painted in 1745–46 by Johannes Zick and depicts the life of Saint Norbert of Xanten, founder of the Premonstratensian Order, in 14 scenes.