1 Thaler - Francis Arnold of Wolff-Metternich

Francis Arnold of Wolff-Metternich ruled Münster from 1707 until his death in 1718, making this thaler a final-year issue struck in the last months of his episcopate. The Bishopric of Münster maintained its own mint rights as an independent ecclesiastical principality within the Holy Roman Empire, a privilege increasingly under pressure from surrounding secular powers throughout the early eighteenth century.

Davenport's attribution under GT II places this squarely among the German territorial thalers of the period — a category where surviving populations are often small, episcopal issues having been melted at disproportionate rates following secularization decades later.