In 830 the Count of Calw founded a modest monastery. On its foundation walls the monastery of St. Aurelius was built in the 11th century. Only the impressive remains of the three-nave columned basilica have been preserved until today. Under Abbot Wilhelm (1071-1091) it achieved outstanding importance, combined with rapidly growing property holdings. In addition, Wilhelm's reform concept was taken as an example by many monasteries in Southern and Central Germany. He presented an interpretation of the rules of the Order of Saint Benedict that required an ascetic way of life for the monks.
Within the century this monastery had become too small. Therefore, a new abbey was built on the opposite side of the Nagold river at the instigation of Count Adalbert of Calw . It was named after the apostles Peter and Paul. The festive consecration took place on 2 May 1091. The first heyday and expansion period of the monastery "in den Hirschauen" (in the stag meadows), as it is called in the Reichenbach donation books, lasted until the middle of the 12th century. St. Peter and Paul was one of Europe's largest monasteries.
Hirsau experienced a second heyday in the 14th and 15th century. The rich monastery treated itself to extensive building measures within its walls. The old Romanesque convent building was replaced with new buildings in the prevailing taste of the Gothic period. These included the cloister and the Chapel of St. Mary (Marienkapelle), which also housed the library.
Monastery life ended with the Reformation in 1556. Duke Ulrich of Württemberg had the monastery closed and a Protestant monastery school established. From 1592 a three-wing hunting palace in the style of the Renaissance was added to the monastery complex. Duke Ludwig of Württemberg built it with court architect Georg Beer and the architect Heinrich Schickhardt on the previous site of the abbot's house.
In 1584-1585 the Church of St. Aurelius (Aureliuskirche) lost the Romanesque building style which had remained unchanged up to the end of the 15th century. The eastern sections of the church were torn down and a gable roof was erected over the now smaller church interior. Since that time three-column arcades have divided the room into flat-roofed naves of equal height.
During the War of Palatinate Succession, French troops destroyed most of the monastery buildings and the hunting palace in 1692. The remains long served as a quarry. This destruction left behind an impressive scenery of ruins. From 1808 Hirsau Monastery was once and for all a ruins that was not allowed to be destroyed any further. In the former east wing of the palace a mighty elm grew into the open. Ludwig Uhland sang of it in the 19th century and it had to be chopped down in 1989.
Up into the 1960's archeologists were occupied with uncovering building remains and investigations on the former monastery grounds. Since 1956 the restored Church of St. Aurelius has served as a Catholic church. The Monastery Museum (Klostermuseum) opened in 1991 on the 900th anniversary of the church consecration of St. Peter and Paul. In a historical building adjacent to the Church of St. Aurelius, the culturally interested have since then informed themselves on 1100 years of Hirsau monastery culture and the town history of Calw.