The abbey, a Premonstratensian monastery, was an Imperial Estate and therefore its abbot had seat and vote in the Reichstag as a prelate of the Swabian Bench.

The monastery buildings were completed in 1156, and in 1172 the church was dedicated to Our Lady and Saint Peter by Otto, Bishop of Konstanz, to whose diocese it then belonged.

The church, which is in the Baroque style, was completed in 1724 by his successor, Michael Helmling (1722–24), and the monastic buildings by Anton Unold (1724–65), of which the "Festsaal", still used for concerts, is of particular note for its elaborate stucco work.

At the time of its secularisation in 1802, it had 27 canons, who administered the parishes of Weissenau, St. Jodock, Bodnegg, Grünkraut, Thaldorf, St. Christian, Gornhofen, Obereschach and Obereisenbach.

Since 1892, the principal buildings have been used as an asylum for the insane, the present psychiatric clinic "Die Weissenau", which also occupied the former abbots' summer residence at Rahlenhof until recently.