1/4 Thaler - John Gottfried of Aschhausen Posthumus

John Gottfried von Aschhausen died in June 1622 while returning from a diplomatic mission to the Imperial court, leaving Würzburg mid-vacancy during one of the most volatile stretches of the Thirty Years' War. This posthumous issue, struck the following year, was a relatively common practice for prince-bishops whose estates needed to settle accounts and whose successors found political value in honoring the predecessor's memory in metal.

Aschhausen had been an aggressive Counter-Reformation administrator, expelling Lutherans from the diocese and coordinating closely with the Jesuits — a posture that shaped Würzburg's role in the broader Imperial Catholic alliance well into the 1620s.