Jülich emergency cliff
The Jülich emergency cliffs were emergency coins from the city of Jülich in the form of cliffs made of silver , sometimes gold . They were issued independently in the years 1543, 1610 and 1621 during occupations of the city or previous sieges. These were related to the considerable strategic importance of the Duchy of Jülich due to its location in the Rhineland, northwest of Cologne , near the Netherlands.
The emergency cliffs of 1543 were war coins, made as a result of the occupation of the city without a fight, but without any direct connection with it, in order to be able to pay the defenders' troops their wages. The cliffs of 1610 and 1621 were siege coins, issued by the respective commanders of the Jülich Fortress , which was built in 1547 after the occupation in 1543 to better protect the city.
Occupation from 1543
After the death of Karl von Egmond , Duke of Geldern, on June 30, 1538, his closest relative, the Protestant Wilhelm V von Jülich-Kleve-Berg , inherited the Geldern lands. This was challenged by the Catholic Emperor Charles V , who already had control of the neighboring Duchy of Brabant and now also claimed Geldern for himself. After Charles V had been right at the Regensburg Reichstag in 1541 , he and his troops occupied Düren, Jülich and Roermond. Since Wilhelm V did not receive the hoped-for support from France or the Schmalkaldic League , he was forced to make peace with Charles V.
It was not until 1543, the year after Jülich was handed over to the imperial troops without a fight , that the rectangular, almost square coins were made. They only carry the discount of a coat of arms, without any indication of the value or other text. The clear machining marks on the edges of most of the pieces show that the silver has been poured into a plate and cut up.
There is a contemporary report about the creation of the Jülich war cliffs from 1543. The Cologne lawyer and councilor Hermann von Weinsberg kept his house and memorial book for decades in the 16th century, today called the “Book of Weinsberg”, in which he wrote down historical and everyday occurrences. In 1543 Weinsberg was a 25-year-old student in Cologne, and that year he was elected to the Cologne City Council for the first time. He wrote about the Jülich cliffs:
"When the duke van Gulich Geltz also had a shortage of half groats and could not be brought up, the people of the Reich also wanted to be paid, the noit drank the princes, so that they would merge and merge through all their lands, kirchenkleinater, gold and silver, leis veirkantige daler daruis sclain, stunts alone the Gulichs leif daruff and one nant is cliff pennink, and was the kreichsfolk giddy with it. According to this, one makes messige and pinnacles monstrances and kilchen in the churches. "
"When the Duke of Jülich also suffered a great lack of money and [the money] could not be raised, but the soldiers [but] also wanted to be paid, the need drove the prince to collect church jewels, gold and silver from all over his country, melted down and had square talers knocked out of them, on which only the Jülich lion stood; and they were called cliff pennies and the people of war were paid with them. Then monstrances and goblets were made out of brass and pewter in the churches. "
Weinsberg's information shows that the face value of the coins was one thaler and that gold and silver were collected from the churches for their production. The surviving files of the United Duchies of Jülich-Kleve-Berg reveal the question of whether the churches had to make a voluntary or involuntary contribution to the costs of the war . They reveal further details on the history of the Jülich emergency cliffs from 1543. In his “Committee farewell from Jülich” of June 1, 1543, Duke Wilhelm V decreed the following:
"[...] 4. After the high emergency in the ile to maintain ruiter and servant and Verdedigung lant and people requires a state cash, is considered to be good and approved so that lant and people are erhaled and received, the benante ordinance of all churches, cloisters and colleges monstrants, goblets, cleinot, which is silver and gold, demand from all who have it in defense, oaths, duties and punishments, but in abundance as follows. First of all, when a goblet is left for each church, and everything else that is left is to be received with weight in the presence of the church leaders, to be shouted out and, if Got almechtig gnat and friet bestowed, by m. G. H. And the lantship in turn reimbursed and each one confessed with underscheit be given how much and what each received. Which aver some small or adornment should keep and reimburse the value of the weight with cash, to amuse myself; so you would have overgulden and machloin to staden. And so in some places from the clenodes nothing was sent or shaped away, which in turn was demanded and taught; and if nothing of it was dumped and not reported nor brought here, the same stain and forfeited in the highest punishment. And that in other m. G. H. also land at the same time the request for the small church or [or] ornaments. [...] "
"[…] 4. Since the maintenance of riders and servants in Jülich requires large amounts of money to defend the country and its people, it is decreed that representatives of the churches, monasteries and colleges should display their monstrances, chalices and jewels to save the country and its people Surrender silver and gold under penalty of fine. Each church should be left with a chalice, and everything else should be written down with weight and value in the presence of the church superiors, so that when Almighty God shows himself gracious and peace comes, what has been given away can be returned. But those who keep jewels and jewelery and want to sell their value in cash are allowed to do so. And if something has been carried away or hidden in some places, it must also be surrendered and, if it is not reported or released, it falls into the possession of the country. And [also] in the rest of the world the demand for church jewels and ornaments is to take place. [...] "
From the historical documents it emerges that the creation of the cliffs was not a measure of a single commander, but was initiated by the duke and organized on a larger scale. In addition, each church was allowed to keep a chalice, and the surrender of the metals had to be acknowledged by the recipient stating the weight in order to enable them to be returned later. It was possible to provide cash instead of surrendering church silver, but embezzlement was prohibited under threat of punishment. Finally, it is important that the measure was not limited to the city of Jülich, but included the entire ducal country.
The Jülich emergency cliffs from 1543 are today, even more than the editions from 1610 and 1622, the greatest rarities in numismatics . The originally low circulation contributes to this, as does the fact that most of the cliffs have been melted down as silver and used up.
Siege of 1610
Jülich was still poorly fortified in 1543, which contributed to the fact that the city had to be surrendered to the imperial troops without a fight. In the following years, helped by the almost complete burning of the city in 1547, the Jülich Fortress was rebuilt at great expense. With the death of Johann Wilhelm von Jülich-Kleve-Berg on March 25, 1609, the Kleve house was extinguished. The dispute over the succession spread rapidly, and during the Jülich-Klevian succession dispute , the now heavily fortified city was besieged from August 1, 1610 by the troops of various nations under the command of Prince Moritz of Orange . September 1610.
During the month-long siege, the fortress commander Johann von Reuschenberg zu Overbach, on behalf of Archduke Leopold V., had siege coins worth between one and 20 thalers made of silver, the largest piece weighing around 90 grams. For this he used the table silver which the Archduke had given him before his departure. In addition to silver coins, a gold coin worth 40 thalers was also made. There is a multitude of different shapes, most of which reveal the origin of the metal used from divided silver utensils, the parts of which were merely flattened and marked with marks on the coin dies. The oval stamp has two letters: an R (for Emperor Rudolf II. ) With a crown placed over it and an L (for Archduke Leopold V). There was also a number to indicate the value.
Siege from 1621 to 1622
After the fortress of Jülich was captured in 1610, it was initially occupied jointly by the troops of the Brandenburg Elector and the Count Palatine of Neuburg. When a rift broke out between the princes in 1614, the Dutch commander Frederik Pithan placed the fortress under Dutch protection. In 1621, a twelve-year armistice ended in the context of the Eighty Years War between the Netherlands and Spain. Spanish troops besieged the Jülich fortress from September 5, 1621 until the defenders were surrendered on February 3, 1622. During this time, the fortress commander Pithan issued silver occupation coins with a face value of 2 stübern up to one thaler , the value levels up to 20 stüber are also as Cliffs have been issued.
The pentagonal silver cliff of 20 Stübern pictured does not reveal its face value easily. In the center of the coin is a coat of arms with the year 1621 and the letters F and P, the monogram of the fortress commander. In each corner of the coin another coat of arms is stamped as a value stamp, which contains the monogram “FP” and the year “1621”, the value number “4” and the currency denomination “S” (tüber). The coin has five value stamps, so it had a face value of 20 Stübern. The also published cliffs of 16 rooms were square with a stamp imprint in each corner, or in another version octagonal with value stamps of 2 rooms in each corner.
The multiple impressions of the die had another function than the mere indication of the value. Compared to the war coins of 1543 it can be seen that the older ones were easy to manipulate by cutting off metal at the edges. The value stamps in the corners or on the edges of the coins from 1621 were used to protect against such changes, so the coin is round to 32 Stübern and has eight value stamps on the edge.
Individual evidence
- ^ Luck, Johann Jacob: Sylloge numismatum elegantiorum: quae diuersi impp., Reges, principes, comites, respublicae diuersas ob causas from anno 1500 ad annum usq [ue] 1600 cudi fecerunt. Reppianis, Argentinae (= Strasbourg) 1620
- ^ Hermann von Weinsberg: Liber iuventutis. 16th century manuscript. Digitized as part of the edition project Digital Acquisition as well as historical and linguistic analysis of the records of the Cologne citizen Hermann Weinsberg (1518–1597) of the University of Bonn Online , accessed on August 24, 2013, or online, directly related to this quote , accessed on August 24, 2013 .
- ↑ without author: Committee farewell to Jülich. Gladbach 1543 June 1. In: Georg von Below (Hrsg.): Landtag files from Jülich-Berg. 1400-1610. First volume: 1400–1562. L. Voss & Cie., Düsseldorf 1895, pp. 475-477, here pp. 476-477.
- ↑ a b c Hartwig Neumann: The Jülich Notklippen from 1543, 1610, 1621/22. City of Jülich and Kreissparkasse Jülich, Jülich 1974.
- ^ A b Colin R. Bruce, George S. Cuhaj and Merna Dudley (eds.): Standard Catalog of World Coins. Seventeenth Century. 1601-1700. 4th edition. Krause Publications, Iola (WI), USA 2008, ISBN 978-0-89689-708-3 , pp. 564-566 (chapter “German States - Julich”).