Christian William of Brandenburg was appointed Administrator of Magdeburg in 1598 — a Protestant holding a nominally Catholic ecclesiastical office, a arrangement common in the post-Reformation German territories where the Peace of Augsburg had left jurisdiction deliberately ambiguous. His tenure grew increasingly confrontational with Catholic imperial authorities, and he was eventually placed under imperial ban in 1628 after allying with Denmark during the early phase of the Thirty Years' War. These small silver fractions predate that catastrophe by over a decade, struck while the archbishopric still functioned as a going concern.
Christian William of Brandenburg was appointed Administrator of Magdeburg in 1598 — a Protestant holding a nominally Catholic ecclesiastical office, a arrangement common in the post-Reformation German territories where the Peace of Augsburg had left jurisdiction deliberately ambiguous. His tenure grew increasingly confrontational with Catholic imperial authorities, and he was eventually placed under imperial ban in 1628 after allying with Denmark during the early phase of the Thirty Years' War. These small silver fractions predate that catastrophe by over a decade, struck while the archbishopric still functioned as a going concern.