The Mansfeld counties were among the most fractured lordships in the Holy Roman Empire — at various points divided among more than a dozen co-ruling family branches simultaneously. The Schraplau line was a minor subdivision of this already fragmented inheritance, and Henry II ruled a territory whose silver came directly from the famously productive Mansfeld copper-shale mines, which dominated European copper output in the sixteenth century and made the region's counts wealthy enough to mint prolifically despite governing tiny parcels of land.
The Spruchtaler designation refers to the inscription-heavy devotional type, a format popular among Lutheran Mansfeld rulers after the Reformation took firm hold in the county from the 1520s onward. Tornau 998f places this among the later die pairings of the Henry II series.
The Mansfeld counties were among the most fractured lordships in the Holy Roman Empire — at various points divided among more than a dozen co-ruling family branches simultaneously. The Schraplau line was a minor subdivision of this already fragmented inheritance, and Henry II ruled a territory whose silver came directly from the famously productive Mansfeld copper-shale mines, which dominated European copper output in the sixteenth century and made the region's counts wealthy enough to mint prolifically despite governing tiny parcels of land.
The Spruchtaler designation refers to the inscription-heavy devotional type, a format popular among Lutheran Mansfeld rulers after the Reformation took firm hold in the county from the 1520s onward. Tornau 998f places this among the later die pairings of the Henry II series.