Bebenhausen Abbey

Bebenhausen Abbey, near Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, began around 1185 when Rudolph I, Count Palatine of Tübingen, donated the abandoned village of Bebenhausen to a Premonstratensian community that adopted the Cistercian rule from 1190. Under Cistercian stewardship the monastery grew into one of the richest in southern Germany by the fifteenth century, before Duke Ulrich of Württemberg dissolved it during the Reformation in 1535 and repurposed it as a Protestant boarding school and seminary that operated until 1806. Württemberg's kings later used the buildings as a royal hunting retreat, and the complex served as the final residence of King William II and Queen Charlotte after the First World War; it also hosted the constitutional parliament of the French-controlled state of Württemberg-Hohenzollern between 1947 and 1952. Owned by the state of Baden-Württemberg since the Second World War and designated a historic monument in 1974, Bebenhausen today functions as a monastery museum.