 From the foundation of the first church until 1803, Essen Minster was the Abbey church of Essen Abbey and the hub of abbey life.The church was neither a parish church, nor a cathedral church, but primarily served the nuns of the abbey.Its position was therefore comparable to a convent church, but a more worldly version, since the nuns at Essen did not obey the Benedictine Rule, but the "Institutio sanctimonialium" the canonical rule for female monastic communities, issued in 816 by the Aachen Synod.