Coburg Taler

The Coburg Taler or Kusstaler is a mocking medal worth one taler from Coburg in 1599 , which Duke Johann Casmir von Sachsen-Coburg had minted on the occasion of his second marriage.

Duke Johann Casimir divorced his wife Anna of Saxony in 1593 after her adultery with Ulrich von Lichtenstein was revealed. Among other things, he had Anna imprisoned in the Sonnefeld Monastery . In 1599 he married Margarethe von Braunschweig-Lüneburg and on this occasion had the coin minted, on the obverse of which you can see a couple kissing each other with the inscription WIE KVSSEN DIE ZWEY SO FEIN (Johann Casimir and Margarethe) on the other side Anna, represented as a religious sister, with the words: WHO KVST ME - POOR NVNNELIN.

The claim that Johann Casimir had the coin minted in 1599 was made by Wilhelm Ernst Tentzel in his work "Saxon Medal History of the Ernestine and Albertine Line" from 1705–1714. There is no evidence for this, and historians and numismatists alike doubt it. The numismatist Walter Grasser interprets the Kusstaler as a contemporary religious protest medal against the renunciation of marriage by Catholic nuns.

An engraving, probably also made in 1599, shows that this is not the case. It shows a princely bride and groom lying next to each other, while in the distance a nun stands sighing and in the background the Sonnefeld Monastery (where Anna was imprisoned!) And the Coburg Fortress can be seen. The legend on the picture is the same as on the medal .

The term Kusstaler, coined by the vernacular , is still used today for the coin.

literature

Sigismund Librowicz: The kiss and the kiss. LIT Verlag, Berlin-Hamburg-Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7111-8 .
Carl Kiesewetter : Faust in history and tradition. With special consideration of occult phenomenalism and medieval magic. Spohr, Leipzig 1893. Reprint Olms, Hildesheim 1963 ( online ).
Konrad Klütz : Coin names and their origin. 2nd Edition. Money-Trend-Verlag, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-9503022-2-6 .
Hans-Joachim Böttcher : The time of my life was little and bad - Anna von Sachsen (1567–1613) , Dresden 2016, ISBN 978-3-941 757-70-7 . Pp. 115-117.

Individual evidence

↑ Helmut Kahnt: The great coin lexicon from A to Z , Regenstauf 2005, p. 245: Spottmedaille
^ For the princely supplement of Duke Johann Casimir's at Heldburg Castle and in Coburg see: Norbert Klaus Fuchs: Das Heldburger Land - a historical travel guide; Rockstuhl Publishing House, Bad Langensalza, 2013, ISBN 978-3-86777-349-2
^ Duke Johann Casimir von Sachsen-Coburg 1564–1633 ; Exhibition for the 400th anniversary of his birthday; October – November 1964 (exhibition catalog. Ed .: Art Collections of the Veste Coburg)
↑ Simone Bastian: Anna was not meant at all . Coburger Tageblatt, October 2, 2015, p. 11
↑ Johann Adolph von Schultes: Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeldische Landesgeschichte ... Section 2: Some features from the private life of Duke Joh. Casimir (pp. 98-105). Coburg 1818.

Web links

www.muenzen-lexikon.de/lexikon/k/pk218.html ( Memento from May 13, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (archived version at archive.org)

[1] Helmut Kahnt: The great coin lexicon from A to Z , Regenstauf 2005, p. 245: Spottmedaille

[2] For the princely supplement of Duke Johann Casimir's at Heldburg Castle and in Coburg see: Norbert Klaus Fuchs: Das Heldburger Land - a historical travel guide; Rockstuhl Publishing House, Bad Langensalza, 2013, ISBN 978-3-86777-349-2

[3] Duke Johann Casimir von Sachsen-Coburg 1564–1633 ; Exhibition for the 400th anniversary of his birthday; October – November 1964 (exhibition catalog. Ed .: Art Collections of the Veste Coburg)

[4] Simone Bastian: Anna was not meant at all . Coburger Tageblatt, October 2, 2015, p. 11

[5] Johann Adolph von Schultes: Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeldische Landesgeschichte ... Section 2: Some features from the private life of Duke Joh. Casimir (pp. 98-105). Coburg 1818.