1 Ecu - John

John of Nesle, Count of Saint-Pol, issued this ecu during a period when French royal authority over the northern counties was being actively contested by Edward III's territorial ambitions ahead of and during the early Hundred Years' War. Semi-autonomous lords like Saint-Pol were minting their own silver partly to fund local military obligations, partly to assert jurisdictional independence from the Paris mint. The weight standard here tracks closely to the royal ecu of Philip VI, which was itself subject to repeated debasement ordinances between 1337 and 1343.