Issued jointly under Johann the Steadfast and his nephew Georg, this thaler dates to the years immediately following the Diet of Worms and the explosive spread of Lutheran reform through the Saxon territories. Johann was among Luther's most committed protectors — it was under his watch that the Ernestinian court became the de facto political shelter of the Reformation. The joint coinage reflects a dynastic arrangement that was already fracturing along confessional lines, as the Albertine branch under Duke Georg the Bearded remained militantly Catholic.
The Keilitz 86 attribution places this among the early broad thalers struck at the Annaberg or Schneeberg facilities, both dependent on the silver output of the Erzgebirge mines then near peak productivity.
Issued jointly under Johann the Steadfast and his nephew Georg, this thaler dates to the years immediately following the Diet of Worms and the explosive spread of Lutheran reform through the Saxon territories. Johann was among Luther's most committed protectors — it was under his watch that the Ernestinian court became the de facto political shelter of the Reformation. The joint coinage reflects a dynastic arrangement that was already fracturing along confessional lines, as the Albertine branch under Duke Georg the Bearded remained militantly Catholic.
The Keilitz 86 attribution places this among the early broad thalers struck at the Annaberg or Schneeberg facilities, both dependent on the silver output of the Erzgebirge mines then near peak productivity.