Biburg Abbey was a house of the Benedictines founded in 1132 by Konrad and Arbo von Sittling-Biburg. They were sons of the Blessed Berta of Biburg, who donated their castle to the Bishop of Bamberg for the purpose. The foundation was originally a double monastery for both men and women; the nunnery however burnt down in 1258 and was not re-built.
In 1555 the monastery was dissolved and the premises came into lay hands. In 1589 the Jesuit College of Ingolstadt obtained the buildings, which were taken over in 1781 by the Knights Hospitaller. In 1808 the monastery was secularised and passed into the possession of the Bavarian State.
The abbey church has remained mainly unchanged from its inauguration in 1140.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.