1 Mariengroschen

Hildesheim struck these groschen during a period of acute civic tension — the city was locked in a prolonged jurisdictional struggle with the Prince-Bishops of Hildesheim that would eventually erupt into the Hildesheim Diocesan Feud of 1519–1523, a conflict that left the city's finances strained and its political independence newly precarious. Municipal coinage of this period was as much a declaration of civic authority as it was a circulating medium.

The Mariengroschen denomination takes its name from the Virgin Mary, whose patronage was invoked across Lower Saxon municipal issues throughout the late medieval and early Reformation period — an interesting choice given that Lutheran ideas were already circulating in Hildesheim by the late 1520s.