After the Franks conquered the Alemands and had subjugated southwestern Germany, Christendom emanating from Rome also extended here. Parish churches, cathedrals and monasteries were focal points of Christian life.
The newly established churches were subordinated to a bishop. The bishops mostly had their seats in places where Roman settlements and fortifications had existed for a long time. Worms, Speyer, Strassburg, Basel and Constance (Konstanz) lay on the left of the Rhine; Augsburg lay east of the Iller and south of the Danube. The borders of the episcopal jurisdictions (dioceses) almost all extended into the German southwest, and remained of great importance up to the beginning of the 19th century. In the central Neckar area, five bishoprics came together: Worms, Speyer, Constance, Augsburg and Würzburg.
In contrast to the spiritual jurisdictions is the temporal rule of the bishops that arose only later in the 13th century. Constance was the largest bishopric not only of the southwest, but in all of Germany. The district covered most of the Duchy of Swabia. Settlement around the episcopal seats developed into the first of the larger cities. They are still today dominated by a bishop's church (cathedral). One speaks of the Worms and Speyer "Dom" of the "Münster" of Strassburg, Basel and Constance. The Münster of Ulm was not a bishop's church, but a city parish church.
The monasteries usually are to be found apart from the cities and traffic routes. They were not only houses of prayer. They also served for training, education, the arts and the sciences. Many are only in ruins now, others evoke the time of their formation over 1000 years ago or the baroque period. Most have long since been abandoned by the monks, although there are - in many cases in the old establishments - still a few smaller monastic communities. In those parts of the country that became Protestant during the Reformation, the monks had to abandon their cloisters. For the abbeys and convents that still remained afterward, the end came only with the Secularization (1803) of the spiritual rulers.
Only the most important monasteries appear on our map. The founding dates provided are always just stopping places, since the establishment went on for a period of years. In the oldest monasteries (Reichenau founded 724, Gengenbach 725, Schwarzach around 750) the monks lived according to the rule handed down by St. Benedict in the 6th century. These monasteries were part of the Benedictine order. A renewal movement from the Burgundian Cluny monastery also penetrated into the German southwest during the 11th century. Under the influence of the Hirsau monastery, further Benedictine monasteries were founded: Comburg, Blaubeuren, Zwiefalten, Allerheiligen in Schaffhausen, St. George, Reichenbach, Weilheim/Teck.
In the 12th century the Cistercian and Premonstratesian orders appeared. The Cistercians were especially dedicated to farming; their monasteries are to be found on the smaller ridges (Maulbronn), which differentiate them perhaps from the heavy towers of the Reichenau. Cistercian monasteries were: Bronnbach in the Tauber Valley, Schöntal in the Jagst, Maulbronn, Schönau by Heidelberg, Herrenalb and Tennenbach in the Black Forest, Rottenmünster by Rottweil; between the Danube and Lake Constance: Salem, Wald, Baindt, Heggbach and Gutenzell.
The Premonstratesian order occupied itself chiefly with pastoral duties in the countryside. Their cloisters which were newly built in the baroque period in Upper Swabia were as richly decorated as those of the Benedictines. We find Premonstratesian monasteries in Aldelberg near Hohenstaufen, in Allerheiligen in the Black Forest, and above all in Upper Swabia: Marchtal, Schussenried, Rot and Weissenau.
Not shown on the map are the Dominican and Franciscan monasteries built in the 13th century in the cities. These so-called mendicant orders particularly took in the urban populations.
In all orders there were also convents (nunneries).
Just like the bishops, the monasteries used landed properties for their support, which they had received as donations from devout believers. Thus there were also many monasteries with large territories over which they ruled, e.g., St. Blaise, Ellwangen, Marchtal, Zwiefalten. Before the establishment of most of the monasteries in our area, wealthy monasteries that lay outside of today's Baden-Württemberg had extensive property here. Examples of this are Fulda (Hessen), Lorsch (Bergstrasse), St. Gallen (Northern Switzerland) and Weissenberg (Lower Alsace).
