Wolfgang Wilhelm converted to Catholicism in 1613 — a calculated move to secure his claim to the Jülich-Kleve-Berg succession, one of the most bitterly contested territorial disputes in early seventeenth-century Germany. The conversion alienated his Reformed Protestant allies and pulled the duchy firmly into the Catholic League's orbit just as the Thirty Years' War ignited. This 1623 thaler was struck at the height of the conflict, in the same year the Catholic forces rode roughshod through the Palatinate proper, dispossessing Wolfgang Wilhelm's own kinsmen.
Neuburg's mint output during this period was irregular, and the Noss Be#310a designation identifies a specific die state within a small emission.
Wolfgang Wilhelm converted to Catholicism in 1613 — a calculated move to secure his claim to the Jülich-Kleve-Berg succession, one of the most bitterly contested territorial disputes in early seventeenth-century Germany. The conversion alienated his Reformed Protestant allies and pulled the duchy firmly into the Catholic League's orbit just as the Thirty Years' War ignited. This 1623 thaler was struck at the height of the conflict, in the same year the Catholic forces rode roughshod through the Palatinate proper, dispossessing Wolfgang Wilhelm's own kinsmen.
Neuburg's mint output during this period was irregular, and the Noss Be#310a designation identifies a specific die state within a small emission.