The brothers Count Hartmann and Otto von Kirchberg founded the monastery in 1093 on their "Allod" (medieval term for: personal family holdings) in honor of Saint Martin. A founding of this kind was tied to a tomb and the desire to provide for one's own salvation. For their monastery founding they secured the support of the reform monastery St. Blasien, which also sent the first Benedictine monks to the Iller river.
The monks of the oldest Catholic order live according to the "Rule of Benedict". It requires renunciation of personal possessions, chastity, obedience and sedentariness. The Benedictine monasteries were places not only of prayer and a life directed at God, but also one of science and art. For example, with their translation and copying activities, the monks made a major contribution to the spreading of philosophical and scientific knowledge of classical antiquity and the Orient throughout Christian Europe. At their monasteries book binding was carried, optical devices for observing the heavenly bodies were developed and water mills were discovered as a source of power. Today the Order is devoted to the ecumene, bible science, the history of theology and missionary work in Africa and Eastern Asia.
After the monastery's founding family had died out, the Catholic merchant family Fugger (Counts of the Reich from 1514) received the coveted office of monastery governor as a permanent fief from Emperor Maximilian I in 1508. In return the Fuggers granted the Emperor high loans. The Fugger had lived in Augsburg since 1367 and primarily achieved a worldwide reputation through Jakob II Fugger and their trading company. They became bankers of emperors and popes, were influential investors and also acted as patrons ("Fuggerei": today a still existent social housing development in Augsburg, Germany). With the "Ausscheidungsvertrag" (contract governing separation) of 1701, the relationship between the Fuggers and the monastery came to an end.
The Benedictine Werner von Ellerbach came from the monastery St. Blasien and belonged to the founding convent of Wiblingen Monastery in 1093. In 1098 he became the first abbot of the newly founded reform monastery.
Following his artistic training in his father's workshop, in Koblenz, Paris and Rome, the painter and fresco painter Januarius Zick from Munich was appointed to the position of Court Painter in Kurtrier in 1761. In addition to his important frescos in Ottobeuren, Wiblingen, Oberelchingen, Koblenz, Mainz and Frankfurt, he left behind more than one thousand panel paintings, which were primarily coveted by the rising middle class. His outstanding work stands at the transition from refined Rococo to the formal rigidity of early Classicism.
From 1808 to 1822 the secularized monastery served Duke Heinrich von Württemberg, the youngest brother of King Friedrich von Württemberg, as his residence. The military garrison, which Heinrich commanded with the rank of a lieutenant general of the cavalry, was stationed here at the same time. After spending his childhood in Mömpelgard, he lived, after the family was forced to leave the country following the outbreak of the French Revolution, in Berlin, Vienna, Oels and Breslau. After Heinrich had entered into a morganatic marriage with the actress Christine Caroline in 1798, he quit his service as colonel and was forced to relinquish any succession to the throne in Württemberg for himself and his children. He had a falling out with his oldest brother and was banned from the Court and the presence of the King. He enjoyed a high standing with the people of Ulm, where he lived until his death.