1 Thaler - Wolfgang of Dalberg Bettlertaler

Wolfgang von Dalberg, Archbishop of Mainz from 1582 to 1601, issued this piece during a period of acute social crisis across the Rhineland, when displaced populations from the religious wars and economic dislocation had swelled the numbers of itinerant poor to levels that alarmed civic authorities throughout the Holy Roman Empire. The "Bettlertaler" — beggar's thaler — takes its name directly from this crisis, issued as part of broader poor-relief efforts that several German ecclesiastical territories adopted in the late sixteenth century.

Exactly how these pieces functioned administratively remains debated among specialists. Whether distributed as controlled alms tokens or as genuine circulating currency reserved for charitable transactions, they occupy an unusual position in the thaler series.