The monastery, dedicated to Saints James and Benedict, was founded in around 739/740 as a Benedictine abbey by members of the Huosi, a Bavarian noble clan, who also provided the three brothers who served one after the other as the first three abbots, traditionally named as Lanfrid, Waldram (or Wulfram), and Eliland, for nearly a century. It seems certain that Saint Boniface had an involvement in the foundation. There was here a school of writing, whose work survives in the form of numerous codices of the 8th and 9th centuries.