OTTOBEUREN. - Benedictine abbey near Memmingen in Bavaria.
It was founded in 764 by Bl. Toto, who died about the year 815, and dedicated to the martyr St. Alexander; when discipline declined at the end of the 11th century, Abbot Adalamo (1082–94) introduced the reform of Hirsau and restored the monastic buildings; his successor Ruperto (1102–45) added a monastery for noble ladies. He was followed by Abbot Isengrim (1145–1148), who composed the «Annales maiores» (in MGH, Scriptores, XVII, p. 312 ff.) and the «Minores» (ibid., p. 315 ff.). Fire damaged the abbey in 1153 and 1217; it declined again in the 15th century, while it flourished anew under Abbot Leonardo Wildemann (1508–46), and still more under Abbot R. Ness (1711–25), who erected the present monastery, a building to which the name Swabian Escorial was given; the church too was rebuilt by him in the Bavarian rococo style, but completed by his successor A. Erb (1740–67). The abbey was secularized in 1803. In 1834 King Luigi I of Bavaria established a priory there; in 1918 the abbey was re-established, and the church was raised to the rank of minor basilica in 1926.