14 Stuivers, round

Leiden struck these coins during the Spanish siege of 1573–1574, one of the most punishing blockades of the Eighty Years' War. The city was reduced to eating rats, dogs, and boiled leather before William of Orange breached the dykes and flooded the polders in October 1574, routing the Spanish forces. Emergency coinage was a practical necessity: the city cut and stamped whatever silver it could commandeer from church plate and private holdings to pay garrison troops and maintain basic civic function.

The round format distinguishes this issue from Leiden's better-known cardboard siege pieces of the same crisis. Silver was scarcer than card stock, and fewer examples survived.