Garsten Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery located in Garsten near Steyr in Upper Austria. Since 1851, the former monastery buildings have accommodated a prison.HistoryThe abbey was founded in 1080-82 by Ottokar II of Styria as a community of secular canons and as a dynastic burial place for his family. Together with his fortress, the Styraburg (Schloss Lemberg), it served as a focal point of Ottokar as ruler of the Traungau, and was endowed with significant possessions in the Traisen and Gölsen valleys, in Lower Austria, probably from the dowry of Ottokar's wife Elisabeth, daughter of the Babenberger Leopold II of Austria.In 1107-08 the monastery was given as a priory to the Benedictine Göttweig Abbey, and became an independent abbey in 1110-11. Its first and greatest abbot was Blessed Berthold of Garsten (d. 1142), a champion of the Hirsau Reforms, who is buried in the abbey church, and who built the abbey up to such a level that for centuries it was the religious, spiritual and cultural centre of the Eisenwurzen region.From 1625 Garsten Abbey was a member of the Benedictine Austrian Congregation.