Christoph Bernhard von Galen — "Bombing Bernd" to his contemporaries — was one of the more militarily aggressive prince-bishops of the seventeenth century, spending much of his reign besieging cities and hiring out his troops to foreign powers. This schilling was struck just a year after he consolidated episcopal authority following a prolonged conflict with the city of Münster itself, which had resisted his rule until 1661. The coinage of his early reign reflects a diocese still reasserting control over its own institutions, mints included.
Christoph Bernhard von Galen — "Bombing Bernd" to his contemporaries — was one of the more militarily aggressive prince-bishops of the seventeenth century, spending much of his reign besieging cities and hiring out his troops to foreign powers. This schilling was struck just a year after he consolidated episcopal authority following a prolonged conflict with the city of Münster itself, which had resisted his rule until 1661. The coinage of his early reign reflects a diocese still reasserting control over its own institutions, mints included.