Imperial Abbey of Kaisersheim Reichsstift Kaisersheim | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1135–1802 (de jure) 1135–1327 and 1656–1802 (de facto) | |||||||||
 Coat of arms
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_Abbey,_circa_1700..jpg) Kaisersheim in the 18th century | |||||||||
| Status | Imperial Abbey | ||||||||
| Government | Elective principality | ||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||||||
• Foundation charter | 21 September 1135 | ||||||||
• Dedicated by Bp Augsburg | 1183 1135 | ||||||||
• Cty Lechsgemünd extinct | 1327 | ||||||||
1346 | |||||||||
1505 | |||||||||
1656 | |||||||||
• Secularised to Bavaria | 1802 | ||||||||
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| Today part of | Germany | ||||||||
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The Imperial Abbey of Kaisersheim (German:Reichsstift Kaisersheim or Kloster Kaisersheim), was a Cistercian monastery in Kaisersheim (now Kaisheim), Bavaria, Germany.
As one of the 40-odd self-ruling imperial abbeys of the Holy Roman Empire, Kaisersheim was a virtually independent state. Its abbot had seat and voice at the Imperial Diet where he sat on the Bench of the Prelates of Swabia. At the time of its secularisation in 1802, the Abbey covered 136 square kilometers and has 9,500-10,000 subjects.[1]