The site on which Adelberg now stands was originally occupied by the village of Hundsholz (
Dogwood), which is the source of the leaping dog on Adelberg's coat of arms. In 1178,
Volknand von Staufen founded the Abbey of Adelberg, and gifted to it a part of the village of Hundsholz. After the demise of the von Staufens, both abbey and town came under the control of
Württemberg, a
State of the
Holy Roman Empire. During the
Reformation, Adelberg became a
Klosteramt (an administrative division centering on the estates of a dissolved monastery), consisting of the former Abbey and the village of Hundsholz. In 1556, the monastery, along with twelve others in the region, were transformed into Protestant grammar schools under the direction of Christoph Binder. The school in Adelberg served this purpose until 1648, its most famous pupil being mathematician and astronomer
Johannes Kepler (1584–1586). In 1807, the
Klosteramt was subsumed into the larger administrative district,
Oberamt of
Schorndorf. In 1830, the village of Hundsholz bought out the property in the village which had previously belonged to the monastery, and the monastery itself. In 1843, the area of the monastery was formally incorporated into the village, which was renamed as Adelberg. The administrative reform of 1938 brought the municipality within the district of Göppingen. After the
Second World War, the population rose steeply through the return of
former expatriates.
Adelberg Abbey In 1054, a small chapel was built on the site on which the abbey now stands. The monastery was itself established in 1178 by the
Premonstratensian canons of
Roggenburg Abbey, and it came under the direct protection of
Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor by a charter of 1181. In the charter the emperor established that Adelberg Abbey would have no other
advocate than the lord of
Hohenstaufen. Also, the charter required that the
prior of the abbey give a gold coin to the
Holy See as a sign that the abbey must be protected and defended by the Pope. The first church in the village of Hundsholz was built in the 1490s. With the introduction of the
Reformation by
Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg, the monastery was dissolved.
Population ==Politics==