Coesfeld received its city rights in 1197, but was first recorded earlier than that in the biography of St. Ludger, patron and first bishop of the diocese of Munster who was born north of Coesfeld in Billerbeck.

The day before he died, Ludger spent the night in Coesfeld and heard mass in the morning in the church he founded.

The Coesfeld St. Jacobikirche dates from the same period as the city charter.

For centuries, Coesfeld was an important stopping place for pilgrims traveling one of the more popular Germanic Jakobi routes (Way of St. James) leading from Warendorf over Münster (via Billerbeck) to Coesfeld, and then on via Borken to Wesel on the Rhine.

Bernhard von Galen managed to drive the foreign troops away and even started to build a palace in Coesfeld, but it was never finished and after he died it was torn down.