1/2 Thaler - Hildebrand Jost

Hildebrand Jost's tenure as Bishop of Sion was defined almost entirely by a protracted constitutional conflict with the Seven Dizains — the sovereign districts of Valais — who systematically stripped episcopal temporal authority through the 1620s, culminating in the Caroline declaration of 1628 that effectively reduced the bishop to a spiritual figurehead. This half thaler was struck squarely in the middle of that struggle, when Jost still held enough practical authority to commission coinage but the outcome was already uncertain.

He eventually appealed to Rome and spent years in exile pressing his case before the Holy See.