1 Thaler - Erich III

Erich III ruled Brunswick-Calenberg for less than four years before dying in 1584, but these thalers date to the earliest stretch of his reign, when the principality was still navigating the religious settlement imposed following the Schmalkaldic War. Brunswick-Calenberg had formally adopted Lutheranism under his predecessor, and Erich III — raised Catholic by his mother Sidonie of Saxony — maintained an uneasy confessional position throughout his rule. The Welter 435 attribution places this squarely among the early emission sequence before later die modifications.