Frederick Charles Joseph von Erthal ruled as Archbishop-Elector of Mainz from 1774 until French Revolutionary forces effectively ended the electorate's secular authority. By 1795–96, the Archbishopric was in its death throes — French troops had occupied Mainz itself in 1792, and though briefly recaptured, the left bank of the Rhine was slipping permanently out of ecclesiastical control. These copper fractions were struck during that final administrative scramble, making them among the last coinage issued under a thousand-year-old ecclesiastical principality that would be formally dissolved in 1803 under the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss.
Frederick Charles Joseph von Erthal ruled as Archbishop-Elector of Mainz from 1774 until French Revolutionary forces effectively ended the electorate's secular authority. By 1795–96, the Archbishopric was in its death throes — French troops had occupied Mainz itself in 1792, and though briefly recaptured, the left bank of the Rhine was slipping permanently out of ecclesiastical control. These copper fractions were struck during that final administrative scramble, making them among the last coinage issued under a thousand-year-old ecclesiastical principality that would be formally dissolved in 1803 under the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss.