1 Schildgroschen - Frederick II

Frederick II ruled Saxony during a period of acute dynastic instability — his father Frederick I had only recently consolidated Albertinian authority, and the Hussite raids into Meissen during the 1420s and 1430s severely disrupted regional commerce. The Schildgroschen type emerged directly from this pressure, an attempt to stabilize small-denomination silver circulation in a territory whose trade routes had been repeatedly interrupted by Bohemian incursions.

The Krug Meissen reference places this among a tightly documented sequence of Meissen mint output. Frederick II would later become known as "the Gentle," though the epithet was applied posthumously — his reign was anything but administratively quiet.