According to legend, the first monastery in Beuron was founded in AD 777, where the upper Danube River is only some 45 miles away from its source. The first recorded evidence of the monastery in Beuron is from the year 1097 and was one of the oldest Augustinian monasteries in Germany.

The monastery was abandoned at the beginning of the 19th century but, thanks to the patronage of Catharina von Hohenzollern, a Benedictine monastery was established by Placidus and Maurus Wolter in 1862. Six years later, Father Desiderius Lenz had worked out his theories on aesthetic geometry and its application in sacred art with his design, construction and decoration of the St. Maurus chapel.

The Benedictines had to leave Beuron as a result of Bismark's Kulturkampf and came to the Emauzy monastery in Prague in 1880; they were allowed to return to Beuron by 1887.