Frauenalb Abbey, "Frowen Albe," was a free nobility foundation for daughters of noble families. Around 1180, Eberhard III of Eberstein, together with his mother Uta, founded Frauenalb Abbey, which by 1193 included Schielberg, Mezlinschwand, and Muggensturm. The bailiwick passed to the Margraves of Baden in 1341. A fire broke out in the Gothic monastery building constructed subsequently in 1508, destroying the abbey and convent. Only the church, rebuilt between 1404 and 1406, and the leper house survived. In 1553, the monastery received income from 38 villages on the right and 10 on the left banks of the Rhine. In 1598, Margrave Ernst Friedrich of Baden-Durlach abolished Frauenalb. In 1605, the last canoness left the monastery.
During the Thirty Years' War, the abbey was again occupied by Benedictine nuns (a Catholic order) from the noble Urspring Abbey in 1631. They were forced to flee to Lichtental in 1634 and were only able to return to Frauenalb in 1645. After the old convent building was demolished in 1696, a new three-story building was constructed by 1704. Under Abbess Gertrudis von Ichtrazheim, a new double-towered monastery church was completed in 1751.
As a result of the Peace of Lunéville in 1802, the monastery fell to Baden. After its dissolution in 1803 as part of the secularization, the property became a military hospital from 1813 to 1815 and was auctioned to private owners in 1819. Factories were set up in the buildings, with fires breaking out several times. All ventures failed, leaving the monastery complex in burned-out ruins by 1853.
The Frauenalb monastery ruins are considered a landmark of the Alb Valley and are among the most important monastic buildings in northern Baden.
Source: Albtal Tourist Board