1 Schilling - Wilhelm von Brandenburg Koknese, regular shield, cross left and crosier right

Wilhelm von Brandenburg-Ansbach was appointed Archbishop of Riga in 1539 through the direct intervention of his brother, Grand Master Albert of Prussia — the same Albert who had secularized the Teutonic Order in 1525 and converted to Lutheranism. Wilhelm's appointment was itself deeply political, part of a broader attempt to bring the Livonian church into the Protestant orbit. The Riga schillings struck under his authority therefore carry an unusual tension: a nominally Catholic archiepiscopal issue produced by a prelate whose loyalty to Rome was questionable from the start.

The billon content of this type reflects ongoing debasement across Livonian coinage during the 1540s, driven by the costs of administering a church under sustained political pressure from both the Livonian Order and Lutheran civic factions within Riga itself.