The Meinhardiner count Meinhard II of Gorizia, sole ruler of Tyrol from 1271, established a proprietary monastery together with his wife Elisabeth of Bavaria, widow of the Hohenstaufen king Conrad IV of Germany.

The first Cistercian monks descended from Kaisheim in Swabia, itself a filial of Morimond Abbey; they were enfeoffed with extended estates in Silz, Meran and Mals and soon evolved to a spiritual centre of the region.

The monastery was largely rebuilt in its present-day Baroque style from the early 17th century onwards, including Wessobrunner stuccowork by Franz Xaver Feuchtmayer.

Again disseized by the Nazi German authorities upon the Austrian Anschluss in 1938, it was resettled by Cistercian monks after the end of World War II, who established several educational institutions, including the Skigymnasium Stams (Stams ski boarding school), the Kirchliche Pädagogische Hochschule – Edith Stein school of education, and the Meinhardinum gymnasium.

The abbey church was elevated to the rank of a minor basilica by Pope John Paul II in 1984.