The founder of western monasticism came from Umbria. After his years as a student in Rome, he lived as a hermit and monk. In 529 he founded Montecasino Monastery, the original monastery of the later Benedictines. The Festival of the Saint is celebrated on 11 July, and representations show him with a book (Rule of Benedict) and abbot's staff.
The monks of the oldest Catholic order live according to the "Rule of Benedict". This requires the renunciation of all personal property, chastity, obedience and continuous residence in one place. The Benedictine monasteries were not only places of prayer and a life oriented toward God, but also of science and the arts. For example, the monks made a major contribution to the spread of philosophical and scientific knowledge of classical antiquity and the Orient in Christian Europe with their work as translators and copiers. At their monasteries bookbinding was practiced, optical devices for observing the heavenly bodies were developed and water mills as power sources were discovered.
Today the Order devotes itself to the ecumene, biblical science, the history of theology and missionary work in Africa and East Asia.
The brothers from the lower aristocracy donated the monastery at the end of the 11th century as the family monastery for their salvation and turned it over to Abbot Uto of St. Blasien, who founded a priory in Ochsenhausen with close ties to the mother monastery.
Nikolaus Faber was the last prior and the first abbot of Ochsenhausen Monastery after it had become independent from St. Blasien in 1391.
Abbot Simon Lengenberger was the first imperial prelate of Ochsenhausen. He had the Monastery Church (Klosterkirche) built, which is consecrated to Saint George.
Weltin was the last abbot at Ochsenhausen. In the course of Secularization the monastery was awarded to Prince Metternich and closed.
The diplomat and later Austrian Chancellor of State received Ochsenhausen Monastery as compensation for the loss of his possessions on the left side of the Rhine. After he had sold Ochsenhausen to the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1825, Metternich had almost all movable furnishings brought to his palace Königswarth in Bohemia.