1 Goldgulden - Gotthard Kettler

Gotthard Kettler served as the last Master of the Livonian Order, and these gulden were struck during the Order's terminal collapse under Muscovite military pressure. Ivan IV's forces had invaded Livonia in 1558, and by 1561 Kettler had negotiated the Order's dissolution — converting to Lutheranism, accepting Polish-Lithuanian suzerainty, and securing for himself the hereditary Duchy of Courland. The coins from this window are effectively the final monetary output of a crusading institution that had governed the eastern Baltic for over three centuries.