1 Dreier - Anna II of Limburg

Anna II von Limburg served as abbess of Herford from 1530 until her death in 1565, presiding over one of the oldest and wealthiest Imperial abbeys in Westphalia during a period of intense confessional pressure. By 1559, the Reformed faith had made deep inroads among the town's burghers, creating a persistent friction between the abbatial authority — which retained its Catholic character and imperial immediacy — and the increasingly Protestant civic population. This small silver issue sits squarely in that tension, minted under a ruler whose temporal authority was being contested even as the coin was struck.