Saint Birgitta (1303–1373), also known as Birgitta of Vadstena, has cast her shadow on this municipality, and is shown on the municipality's coat-of-arms. Her order established the Bridgettine Order's cloister in Maribo, when in 1416 monks from Vadstena cloister were sent to Maribo, then called Skimminge, to help establish a cloister.
In 1536, however, the cloister was abolished. After the old town church burned down in 1596, the cloister then in place received status as town church.
King Christian IV's daughter, Leonora Christina Ulfeldt, was probably the cloister's most famous resident. In 1685 after her release from 21 years imprisonment for high treason from the Blue Tower (Blåtårn) in Copenhagen's Castle, she spent her final years in the cloister, and is buried in a crypt at the church.
In 1803-1804 the islands of Lolland-Falster, who had until then belonged to the Funen diocese, were made into an independent diocese, and the cloister church was given the status of the diocese's cathedral (domkirke). The bishop, however, resides in Nykøbing Falster.
Several times during the 1800s the church has been secured against decline
