2 Groats 'Botdrager' - Louis II

Louis II of Flanders inherited the county in 1346 at age eleven after his father Louis I was killed at Crécy fighting alongside the French crown — an irony, given that Louis II would spend much of his reign navigating the competing economic pulls of France and England. Flemish cloth towns depended on English wool; political loyalty to Paris was financially ruinous. The botdrager coinage emerged from this chronic tension, when Louis needed a stable silver currency acceptable to merchants who cared far more about fineness than feudal allegiances.

The "botdrager" name derives from the Flemish for barrel-carrier, a reference that remains debated among specialists.