1/4 Thaler - Philip Adolph of Ehrenberg

Philip Adolph von Ehrenberg became Prince-Bishop of Würzburg in 1623 — the same year this coin began striking — and his tenure rapidly became one of the most violent episodes of the Counter-Reformation in the Holy Roman Empire. He presided over the execution of more than 300 people for witchcraft between 1626 and 1631, including children and members of his own cathedral chapter. The quarter thaler series falls at the precise opening of his reign, before that machinery of persecution reached full operation.

Würzburg's mint was active through the early Thirty Years' War, when silver coinage was under enormous pressure from the Kipper und Wipperzeit currency debasement crisis that had only recently destabilized trade across the Empire.