The Vögte (or lay stewards) were the Counts of Rieneck, kin of the founders, who persistently over the next centuries tried to acquire the property for themselves.
The monastery was founded in 1084–85 in the Black Forest, by the source of the Brigach, against the background of the Investiture Controversy, as a result of the community of interests of the Swabian aristocracy and the church reform party, the founders being Hezelo and Hesso of the family of the Vögte of Reichenau, and the politically influential Abbot William of Hirsau.
The shape of the future however was made plain with the appointment to this Bavarian abbey in 1189 of Abbot Manegold of Berg, son of the Count of Berg, as the result of political intrigue by the Counts of Andechs, Vögte (lords protectors) of Tegernsee, and Bishop Otto of Freising.
Problems arose after the Reformation, when the Vögte (lords protectors) of the abbey were the Protestant rulers of Brandenburg, who had inherited the neighbouring County of the Mark.