1 Goldgulden - Wilhelm von Brandenburg

Wilhelm von Brandenburg served as Archbishop of Riga from 1539, but his tenure was defined less by ecclesiastical administration than by the catastrophic geopolitical pressure of the Livonian War, which broke out in 1558 when Ivan IV's forces invaded the Confederation. These goldgulden were struck at precisely the moment the Archbishopric was disintegrating as a political entity — Wilhelm would capitulate to Sigismund II Augustus of Poland-Lithuania within two years, effectively ending independent ecclesiastical coinage from Riga.

Fed#384 is among the final gold issues of the Archbishopric before its secularization.