1 Zweier - Ernest of Bayern

Ernest of Bavaria held the Prince-Bishopric of Passau from 1517 until his death in 1540, ruling a see that sat at the confluence of the Danube, Inn, and Ilz rivers — a position of considerable commercial traffic that made small silver coinage a practical necessity. The Zweier, worth two Pfennig, was the workhorse denomination of everyday transaction in the Upper Danube region throughout the early sixteenth century.

Ernest was a Wittelsbach, appointed to the see partly through dynastic maneuvering rather than ecclesiastical distinction. The overlap of his tenure with the early Reformation years put Passau under sustained pressure, as Lutheran ideas moved rapidly through the merchant networks his small coins were helping to lubricate.