Issued during the vacancy following the death of Archbishop Gerlach von Nassau in 1371, this gulden reflects a recurring feature of ecclesiastical minting rights in the Holy Roman Empire: the chapter retained full coinage authority during interregna, a privilege fiercely protected against imperial encroachment. Mainz was one of the most powerful of the Rhenish ecclesiastical mints, and sede vacante issues were not administrative curiosities but deliberate assertions of institutional continuity.
The two-year gap before Johann I von Nassau's confirmation in 1373 placed this strike near the close of that vacancy.
Issued during the vacancy following the death of Archbishop Gerlach von Nassau in 1371, this gulden reflects a recurring feature of ecclesiastical minting rights in the Holy Roman Empire: the chapter retained full coinage authority during interregna, a privilege fiercely protected against imperial encroachment. Mainz was one of the most powerful of the Rhenish ecclesiastical mints, and sede vacante issues were not administrative curiosities but deliberate assertions of institutional continuity.
The two-year gap before Johann I von Nassau's confirmation in 1373 placed this strike near the close of that vacancy.