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Christoph Bernhard von Galen was born on 12 October 1606 to Lutheran parents of the aristocratic von Galen family. His father, Dietrich von Galen, had estates in the Baltic region and bore the title of Marshal of Courland. During a state assembly in Münster, Dietrich von Galen killed the Münster hereditary marshal, Gerd Morrien zu Nordkirchen, on 15 February 1607, and consequently had to spend twelve years in detention at Bevergern Castle. Because his wife accompanied him voluntarily, in 1616 the young Christoph Bernhard was placed under the care of his uncle, the Canon of Münster, Heinrich von Galen. He gave him a Catholic education by Jesuits at the Paulinum in Münster.
In 1619, at 13, he took his first job working for the cathedral chapter in Münster. In 1626, when he had reached the required age, he moved to Cologne and Mainz, to complete his education at a Jesuit school. An educational journey took him to Bourges and Bordeaux in France, from where he returned to Münster in July 1627. The time of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) affected him. In 1630 he became treasurer of the cathedral and in 1634 a spiritual advisor (Geistlicher Rat). At that time, not many canons were active politically. Von Galen was given numerous diplomatic missions. He repeatedly took part in negotiations with the imperial generals in Westphalia.
Biography
Reduced to poverty through the loss of his paternal inheritance, he took holy orders; but this did not prevent him from fighting on the side of Emperor Ferdinand III during the concluding stages of the Thirty Years' War. In 1650 he was elected prince-bishop of Münster, succeeding Ferdinand of Bavaria.
After restoring a degree of peace and prosperity in his principality, Galen had to contend with a formidable insurrection on the part of the citizens of Münster; but in 1661 this was solved by the occupation of the city. At the head of the largest ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire, the prince-bishop, who maintained a strong army, became an important personage in Europe. In 1664, he was chosen one of the directors of the imperial army raised to fight the Turks, but his troops came too late to fight; after the peace which followed the Christian victory at the Battle of St. Gotthard in August 1664, he aided Charles II of England in his Second Anglo-Dutch War with the Dutch, until the intervention of Louis XIV and Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg compelled him to make a disadvantageous peace in 1666 in Cleve.[1]
He proved himself anxious to reform the church, although his chief energies were directed to increasing his power and prestige,[1] in the course of which he succeeded in getting rid of the foreign armies which had been occupying Westphalia since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
In popular culture
In the Netherlands he carries the nickname "Bommen Berend" ("Bombing Bernard") because he unsuccessfully laid siege to the Dutch city of Groningen using artillery. A holiday with this name is still celebrated in the city of Groningen on 28 August to commemorate the breaking of the siege.[2]
See also
Strasbourg Agreement (1675), the first chemical weapons treaty in history, which was negotiated as a result of Bishop von Galen's siege of Groningen.
K. Tücking, Geschichte des Stifts Münster unter C. B. von Galen (Munster, 1865)
P. Corstiens, Bernard van Galen, Vorst-Bisschop van Munster (Rotterdam, 1872)
A. Hüsing, Fürstbischof C. B. von Galen (Münster, 1887)
C. Brinkmann in the English Historical Review, vol. xxi . (1906).
There is in the British Museum a poem printed in 1666, entitled Letter to the bishop of Munster containing a Panegyrick of his heroick achievements in heroick verse.