The beginnings of Allerheiligen Monastery are the typical example of a late Romanesque conventual church (early 13th century) under the influence of the emerging Gothic style. The floor plan of the three-nave basilica with transepts, a crossing tower and a square chancel has elements from the square schematism of the Romanesque period.
The facade, with its already slightly pointed windows and the closed wall surfaces, appears to be from the late Romanesque period. The oldest architectural forms include parts of the inner portal of the porch and the base of the eastern wing.
The conventual church of Allerheiligen is also considered to have paved the way for the early Gothic age in Germany. The building shows how the new, gothic style spread from France to the right (eastern) side of the Rhine shortly before the middle of the 13th century.
Early Gothic:
Around 1250 the chancel, square chancel (intersection between nave and transept) and the transept of the church and the eastern wing of the monastery were erected. The trefoil arch recesses of the chancel possess Gothic style characteristics, as do the unadorned bell capitals and plate-shaped bases of the columns.
High Gothic: 2nd half of the 13th century
The nave was constructed as a basilica, i.e. a nave with two low aisles, and light can fall into the church through the windows in the upper walls of the nave. High Gothic founder figures of the founder and the first abbot are today located on the facade of the "Fürstenkapelle" (Chapel of the Princes) in Lichtental / Baden-Baden. The church and monastery were completed at the beginning of the 14th century.
Late Gothic:
The nave of the church destroyed in the fire of 1470 was rebuilt in the late Gothic style as a three-nave hall with raised aisles. Today the broadly spanned arches to the southern and the pier projections to the northern aisles can still be recognized. The chapter hall and the cloister were redesigned.
Baroque:
In the late 17th and the 18th century following the Counter-Reformation, which was partially implemented by the Premonstratensian monks, the monastery and church were decorated in the baroque style. This baroque tendency to turn everything into a performance and to blur the limits between the seeming and the real by painting illusions also appeared in the churches. The splendid alter formed the background for the liturgy and the celebration of the mass became a "heavenly performance". Painting, ornamental plasterwork, architecture, artistic woodcutting and sculpture combine to form a complete baroque work of art. Today the early rood altar of Allerheiligen Monastery serves as the high altar in Peterstal.