Rottenbuch Abbey was founded as an Augustinian monastery in 1073 on land granted by Duke Welf I of Bavaria. The Abbey church was constructed between 1085 and 1125 in the Romanesque style. The design of a crossing transept and free-standing tower is unusual for a Bavarian church. Rottenbuch was a center of papal loyalty during the Investiture Controversy. Under the patronage of Emperor Louis the Bavarian in the 14th century, together with its location on the pilgrimage route to Italy, Rottenbuch became the most influential house of Canons Regular in Germany.
In the 18th century the medieval interior of the church was redecorated in the ornate High Baroque style by painter Matthäus Günther and stuccoist Josef Schmuzer. With the secularization of the Bavarian monasteries under Montgelas in 1803 the monastic buildings were pulled down and the noteworthy library sent to a paper mill; the Abbey church became a parish church, which it remains to this day.
References:Visby Cathedral (also known as St. Mary’s Church) is the only survived medieval church in Visby. It was originally built for German merchants and inaugurated in 1225. Around the year 1350 the church was enlarged and converted into a basilica. The two-storey magazine was also added then above the nave as a warehouse for merchants.
Following the Reformation, the church was transformed into a parish church for the town of Visby. All other churches were abandoned. Shortly after the Reformation, in 1572, Gotland was made into its own Diocese, and the church designated its cathedral.
There is not much left of the original interior. The font is made of local red marble in the 13th century. The pulpit was made in Lübeck in 1684. There are 400 graves under the church floor.