1 Groschen Tournois

Aachen's right to strike silver coinage was a perpetual flashpoint with the archbishops of Cologne, who claimed overlapping monetary authority in the region throughout the fifteenth century. This groschen tournois type — modeled on the French gros tournois but thoroughly germanized in execution — reflects the city's insistence on exercising its imperial minting privilege independently, a privilege confirmed and re-confirmed by successive emperors precisely because it was so frequently contested. The tournois form had been commercially dominant in Rhineland trade for over a century by 1419, which explains the conservative typological choice long after the French prototype had itself evolved.