11/4 Thaler - Placidus of Droste

Placidus von Droste served as Prince-Abbot of Fulda from 1678 until his death in 1700, presiding over one of the most powerful ecclesiastical territories in the Holy Roman Empire. Fulda held the rank of an imperial abbey — directly subject to the Emperor, not to any secular prince — which gave its abbots the right to strike coins in their own name. This piece dates to the year Louis XIV's revocation of the Edict of Nantes was still convulsing Protestant-Catholic relations across the Empire, a period when Fulda's Baroque rebuilding program was in full swing and the abbey was asserting its prestige at every opportunity, including through coinage.

The 11/4 Thaler denomination is an awkward multiple that appears occasionally in German ecclesiastical issues of this period, typically struck for ceremonial or presentation purposes rather than everyday commerce.