2 Mariengroschen - Ernest August I

Ernest August served as Bishop of Osnabrück from 1661 to 1698 under the terms of the Peace of Westphalia, which established an alternating Protestant-Catholic succession for the see — making him a Lutheran bishop ruling a Catholic diocese, an arrangement unique in the empire. He would later become the first Elector of Hanover in 1692, which has consistently overshadowed his Osnabrück tenure in the historical record. These small silver coins predate that elevation by nearly three decades, struck when his political ambitions were still largely local.