John Christopher of Westerstetten governed Eichstätt from 1612 until his death in 1637, a tenure consumed almost entirely by the Thirty Years' War. The bishopric changed hands between Catholic and Protestant forces multiple times during the conflict, and coinage from this period was as much a declaration of continued ecclesiastical authority as it was a functioning currency. By 1633, Swedish forces under Gustavus Adolphus had pushed deep into southern Germany, and the political situation in Franconia was precarious enough that a gold issue from a small prince-bishopric carried real urgency behind it.
John Christopher of Westerstetten governed Eichstätt from 1612 until his death in 1637, a tenure consumed almost entirely by the Thirty Years' War. The bishopric changed hands between Catholic and Protestant forces multiple times during the conflict, and coinage from this period was as much a declaration of continued ecclesiastical authority as it was a functioning currency. By 1633, Swedish forces under Gustavus Adolphus had pushed deep into southern Germany, and the political situation in Franconia was precarious enough that a gold issue from a small prince-bishopric carried real urgency behind it.