Bernhard Gustav of Baden-Durlach served as Prince-Abbot of Fulda from 1671 until his death in 1677, an appointment that sat uneasily with the abbey's traditionally conservative Catholic establishment given his background. Fulda held the rank of an imperial abbey — directly subordinate to the Emperor — and its right to strike coin was among the privileges jealously maintained through the seventeenth century.
The 1672 date places this piece squarely in the recovery phase following the Thirty Years' War, when many ecclesiastical mints were reasserting coinage rights that had been disrupted or suspended during the conflict.
Bernhard Gustav of Baden-Durlach served as Prince-Abbot of Fulda from 1671 until his death in 1677, an appointment that sat uneasily with the abbey's traditionally conservative Catholic establishment given his background. Fulda held the rank of an imperial abbey — directly subordinate to the Emperor — and its right to strike coin was among the privileges jealously maintained through the seventeenth century.
The 1672 date places this piece squarely in the recovery phase following the Thirty Years' War, when many ecclesiastical mints were reasserting coinage rights that had been disrupted or suspended during the conflict.