1 Thaler - Francis of Waldeck

Franz von Waldeck held the Bishopric of Münster through one of its most violent chapters — he was the prince-bishop who suppressed the Anabaptist commune in 1535, ordering the execution of Jan van Leiden and his co-leaders, whose bodies were displayed in iron cages hung from St. Lambert's Church. By 1546, the year of this Thaler, the diocese was still absorbing the political and financial aftershocks of that siege. The Schmalkaldic War broke out the same year, forcing ecclesiastical territories across the Holy Roman Empire into costly defensive posturing.