1 Turnose 'Groschen Tournois' - William II

William II of Jülich received the ducal title in 1356, five years before this issue begins, and spent much of his reign navigating the fractious politics of the lower Rhine — caught between the ambitions of the Archbishop of Cologne and the expanding influence of Burgundy. The Tournois type itself was a deliberate imitation of the French gros tournois, a coin whose design had been circulating as a prestige currency across northern Europe since Louis IX struck the original at Tours in 1266. By the mid-fourteenth century, Rhenish lords minting their own versions were as much making a political statement about monetary credibility as responding to regional silver demand.

Noss JMA#65a is a relatively tight attribution within a series that can be difficult to assign without the die study.