Catalog
1 Mariengroschen
| Issuer | Hildesheim, City of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1534-1552 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Reverse description | The Virgin Mary, crowned and enthroned, is depicted standing or seated in three-quarter view, holding the Christ Child before her in the field. Stylized flames or rays radiate around the figures forming a mandorla-like aureole, all contained within an inner circle. The surrounding Latin legend, divided by the inner circle boundary, reads MARIA MATER DOMINI or a close variant, identifying the image as the Madonna and Child in the devotional tradition common to Mariengroschen coinage. The design is rendered in the late medieval hammered style typical of north German municipal issues of the first half of the sixteenth century. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Hildesheim's civic coinage of this period emerged from a city still recovering from the Hildesheim Diocesan Feud of 1519–1523, in which Bishop John IV's military campaign against the city's Protestant-leaning neighbors devastated the regional economy and reshuffled territorial power across Lower Saxony. The city retained its minting rights through considerable political friction with the bishopric throughout the 1530s and 1540s.
The Mariengroschen as a denomination was a Lower Saxon invention, standardized by regional convention rather than imperial mandate.