Princely penny

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Fürstengroschen Landgrave Balthasar of Thuringia from the Freiberg mint (abbreviation BALTH = Freiberg), minting period 1405–1406 (silver; diameter 28 mm; 2.85 g; jug No. 540/1)

The princely penny is a late medieval Meissen penny from the Meissen-Saxon penny period , which Landgrave Balthasar of Thuringia (1349 / 79–1406) had in his newly established mint in Sangerhausen and in the state mint in Freiberg from 1393 onwards. A special feature of these groschen , which was minted under Balthasar, is that from 1396 the mint can be identified by the abbreviation of his name. On the back is the letter "b" in front of the soaring Meißner lionimprinted, which is a feature of the princely penny. With the death of Balthasar in 1406, the minting of the royal groschen was stopped and his mint in Sangerhausen was closed.

Coin history

Landgrave Balthasar established the Sangerhausen mint and had a. Mint prince's penny. Its mint was the first to mint groschengeld outside of the Freiberg regional mint .

Landgrave Balthasar had the Sangerhausen mint built in 1391. That year he commissioned his Freiberg mint master Nyckel von Meideburg to strike groschen coins in Sangerhausen for the same shot and grain as in Freiberg . The Meissen groschen of the new mint were the first to be minted outside of the state mint in Freiberg. It was built for the payment obligations in the Harz silver mining. Balthasar's mint master and Count von Stolberg , who had built silver mines and smelting works, were obliged to deliver the silver in the new mint .

The Sangerhausen groschen had to be different from those minted in the state mint in Freiberg. This is why they initially had the "s" symbol for Sangerhausen for a short time. In 1393, Balthasar signed a new coinage agreement with his nephew, Margrave Friedrich IV . When the two Wettins agreed on coins, it was determined that Balthasar uses the symbol “b” on his groschen in front of the soaring lion, while Friedrich uses the symbol “f”. However, the term “princely penny” only applies to Balthasar's penny. Another feature of the royal groschen from Sangerhausen is the name Balthasar, which has been abbreviated to BALThA since 1396. His name is abbreviated to BALTh on the Freiberg Groschen. The unusual distinguishing feature of the mints was retained until his death in 1406.

When the princely penny was introduced in March 1393, it was referred to as a “semi-fine penny”. Its value was:

From 1396 onwards, the silver content was greatly reduced. The crude planchets ( "swarcze platen") were prior to embossing in Weinstein boiled and thereby concentrated at the surface with silver. Despite the higher copper content, a beautiful silver appearance was achieved. Balthasar and his brother Wilhelm the One-Eyed (1349 / 79–1407) deteriorated their coins together. They urgently needed an additional source of money to meet their substantial financial obligations. In 1406, the deterioration in coins had reached its peak: 53 groschen now resulted in a Rhenish guilder. Margrave Friedrich the arguable distanced himself fundamentally from the financial policy undertakings of his two uncles and stopped his coinage in 1395. It was not until 1405 that he had groschen money minted again in the form of high-quality shield groschen .

With the death of Landgrave Balthasar on May 18, 1406, the minting of the royal groschen ended.

Coin description

Fürstengroschen Landgrave Balthasar of Thuringia from the Sangerhausen mint (abbreviation BALThA = Sangerhausen), minting period 1405–1406 (silver; diameter 28 mm; 2.85 g; jug no. 572/1)

Landgrave Balthasar's prince's groschen shown here comes from his Sangerhausen mint and was minted in the period 1405–1406. The groschen from this period were minted with a greatly reduced silver content by the mint masters Andreas Müller and his son Claus . The diminution in the groschen of this period was masked by simmering in tartar.

Balthasar's princely penny from the Freiberg mint (see the picture above) is almost the same as that from Sangerhausen. The mint is shown in the abbreviation of the mint's name . The abbreviation of Balthasar's name in Freiberg Groschen is BALTh, not BALThA.

front

The front shows the lily cross in quatrefoil . As with all Meißner Groschen, the letters of the word CRVX (= cross) are placed in the outer corners. The distribution of the letters is here XC / VR. The beginning of the word is under the abbreviated name of Balthasar. (With every change of government in the Wettin lineage of Meißen, the distribution of the word CRVX is alternately shifted forward or backward by one field.) The meaning of the arrangement of the CRVX letters and other characters should remain hidden from the people. They were intended for the state money changers and the mint officials. The name, abbreviated with BALThA, refers to the Sangerhausen mint.

  • Inscription: + • BALThA • DI • GRACIA • TVRING • LANG
    • Written out: Balthasar, dei gratia Thuringiae landgrafius.
    • Translation: Balthasar, by the grace of God Landgrave of Thuringia.

back

The reverse shows the princely penny with the sign “b” in front of the lion rising to the left and the additional sign “Ringel” in front of and behind its head and in the lower curvature of the tail. Cross punctuation was used in the legend .

  • Inscription: + GROSSVS + MARCh (ionis) + MISNENSIS

Note: Prince's groschen were sometimes also called the good groschen . Since the end of the 16th century, they were valued at 1 ⁄ 24  Reichstaler . The groschen minted in accordance with the regulations of the Lower Saxony Mint Association of 1555 were occasionally referred to as princely groschen.

See also

literature

  • Gerhard Krug: The Meissnisch-Saxon Groschen 1338–1500 , Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1974
  • Walther Haupt : Sächsische Münzkunde , Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1974
  • Helmut Kahnt: The large coin lexicon from A to Z , Regenstauf 2005, p. 147
  • Numismatischer Verein zu Dresden e. V. (Ed.): Dresden Numismatic Hefte No. 1, 1996. In it: The Genealogy of the Meißnisch-Saxon Princes.

Web links

Commons : Meißner Groschen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard Krug: The Meissnisch-Saxon Groschen 1338-1500 (1974), p. 126 / 129-133
  2. ↑ Helmut Kahnt: Das große Münzlexikon von A to Z (2005), p. 147
  3. ^ Gerhard Krug: The Meissnisch-Saxon Groschen 1338-1500 , Berlin 1974, p. 80
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Steguweit: History of the Gotha Mint from the 12th to the 19th Century , Weimar 1987, p. 30
  5. ↑ Gerhard Krug: Die Meißnisch-Saxon Groschen 1338–1500 (1974) p. 52: Obligation to deliver the silver in the coin
  6. ↑ Gerhard Krug: The Meissnisch-Saxon Groschen 1338–1500 (1974), p. 52/53: The characters s, b and f.
  7. ↑ Krug p. 137: Meißner Groschen (with the Gothic majuscule F), period 1393-1395.
  8. ^ Gerhard Krug: The Meissnisch-Saxon Groschen 1338–1500 (1974) P. 126: BALThA and BALTh
  9. ↑ Walther Haupt: Sächsische Münzkunde (1974), p. 67
  10. ↑ Gerhard Krug: The Meissnisch-Saxon Groschen 1338-1500 (1974) P. 54: Boiled in Weinstein
  11. ↑ Walther Haupt: Sächsische Münzkunde (1974), p. 67: 53 Groschen on the Rhenish guilders
  12. ↑ Gerhard Krug: The Meissnisch-Saxon Groschen 1338–1500 (1974) p. 54: coin deterioration
  13. ^ Gerhard Krug: The Meissnisch-Saxon Groschen 1338–1500 (1974) P. 132/134: Period 1405 to 1406
  14. ^ Gerhard Krug: Die Meißner Groschen, in: Festschrift Grote, Münster 1952, p. 43
  15. ↑ Walther Haupt: Sächsische Münzkunde (1974), p. 260: front
  16. ↑ Walther Haupt: Sächsische Münzkunde (1974), p. 260
  17. ↑ See, inter alia, Krug No. 417; 433; 447 (written out)
  18. ↑ Walther Haupt: Sächsische Münzkunde (1974), p. 261
  19. ↑ Helmut Kahnt: Das Großes Münzlexikon (2005), p. 147: Other Fürstengroschen