1 Liard - Anne van de Marck

The Abbey of Thorn was one of the few religious institutions in the Low Countries with full imperial immediacy — answering directly to the Holy Roman Emperor rather than any secular lord — and that status carried the right to strike coin. Abbess Anne van de Marck held that authority during a period when the Southern Netherlands were grinding through the Eighty Years' War, and small copper issues like this liard filled the vacuum left by hoarded silver.

Thorn's coinage rights were perennially contested by neighboring Gelderland and Liège, making any dated emission from the abbey's mint politically as much as economically motivated.