Coesfeld

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.

North Rhine-Westphalia Recklinghausen (district) Unna (district) Hamm Borken (district) Steinfurt (district) Münster Warendorf (district) Olfen Rosendahl Senden Billerbeck Dülmen Ascheberg Havixbeck Coesfeld Nottuln Lüdinghausen Nordkirchen
Church of St. Lambert, the destination of the yearly Grand Cross procession, with its 17th-century baroque tower
The 12th century St. Jakobikirche was bombed during WWII, but the old doorway survives and a new church was built behind it.
One of the 18 stations of the cross in Coesfeld, erected in Galen's time by his Danish architect Pieter Pictorius
Coesfeld cross hung with silver votive decorations
Christoph Bernhard von Galen 1670
Coat of Arms of Coesfeld district
Coat of Arms of Coesfeld district