Adalbert III von Harstall became Prince-Bishop of Fulda in 1788, inheriting a wealthy but politically precarious ecclesiastical principality. By 1795, the French Revolutionary Wars were reshaping the Holy Roman Empire's western territories at alarming speed, and Fulda's fate was already being quietly negotiated by powers far larger than itself. The principality would be secularized just seven years later under the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, making this among the final thalers struck under Fulda's centuries-old episcopal coinage authority.
The two Eichelmann varieties suggest minor die differences between production runs — not unusual for a small ecclesiastical mint working under wartime supply pressures.
Adalbert III von Harstall became Prince-Bishop of Fulda in 1788, inheriting a wealthy but politically precarious ecclesiastical principality. By 1795, the French Revolutionary Wars were reshaping the Holy Roman Empire's western territories at alarming speed, and Fulda's fate was already being quietly negotiated by powers far larger than itself. The principality would be secularized just seven years later under the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, making this among the final thalers struck under Fulda's centuries-old episcopal coinage authority.
The two Eichelmann varieties suggest minor die differences between production runs — not unusual for a small ecclesiastical mint working under wartime supply pressures.