In 1802, the house of Baden acquired the imperial abbeys of Salem and Petershausen, which were subsequently incorporated into the so-called Bodenseefideikommiss (Lake Constance family estate), which, in 1923, became the free property of the house of Baden (after the abolition of the monarchy, in 1918). Salem Castle became the headquarters of the noble family. With the takeover of the site by the state of Baden-Württemberg, in 2009, the Karlsruhe Cultural Property Dispute (2006–09) ended. The house of Baden had planned to dismember important parts of the manuscript collection of the Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe. In 2010, the State Palaces and Gardens of Baden-Württemberg, as the new owner, organized a conference in Salem, the results of which are available in this small volume. Further information on the secularization of Salem and Bronnbach, which came to the Princes of Löwenstein, are provided by Volker Rödel. The history of the religious orders profits from the essays by Uli Steiger, who traces the struggle for the foundation of the Upper German Cistercian Congregation (1593–1624), and by Maria Magdalena Rückert, who examines the six women's Cistercians in Upper Swabia and on the Upper Neckar, who were subordinate to Salem. Of these, the monasteries Wald and Heiligkreuztal did not enjoy imperial immediacy (they were under the control of Austria).

The relations of the monasteries to the emperor and the empire are treated with a strong art historical accent, which is also obvious in discussions of the grandiose baroque Kaisersaal (emperor's hall) in Salem, built in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. It is treated in detail by Ulrich Knapp, who compares it with other imperial and festival halls. These halls also play an important role in the contribution by Wolfgang Wüst, who, using the examples of Salem, Kaisheim, and Ebrach, shows that imperial immediacy was a “serious concern” for monasteries in early modern times (20). The iconography of the many Kaisersäle, which did not only exist in monasteries, illustrates the great importance of the emperor, the empire, and the house of Habsburg for the builders. Regardless of their individual characteristics, they have in common depictions of the (Habsburg) emperors and pictorial themes related to the empire. Konrad Krimm vividly depicts Salem's at-times-tense relationship to the powerful house of Austria in the eighteenth century.

Appealing illustrations and an index of places and persons enrich the volume, which is a welcome contribution to the history of the imperial abbeys in Germany.