The abbey was founded in 1011 by S. Alferio, a Salerno native who trained in Cluny. Under the third abbot, St. Peter became the center of a large Congregation, the Ordo Cavensis. The first abbots were distinguished for their holiness: the first four were recognized as saints, another eight, blessed.
Elevated to a bishopric in 1394, from 1431 to 1497 it was entrusted to commendatory cardinals, who impoverished it of monks and substances, so that in 1497 it was aggregated to the Congregation of S. Giustina of Padua.
In the century XVIII the church and some parts of the abbey were rebuilt or enlarged.
In 1844, D. Giuseppe Serra and D. Rudesindo Salvado, Spanish monks who joined in Cava, left for Australia as missionaries and founded the abbey of Nuova Norcia.
Under the suppression law of 1866, the abbey was declared a national monument and entrusted to the abbot for safekeeping. Then the monks opened a lay college and began studies and publications of the archive. These activities continued into the twentieth century. Neg