Balthasar von Dernbach had already been expelled from Fulda once — driven out in 1576 by a Protestant-sympathizing chapter that resented his aggressive Counter-Reformation policies — before Emperor Rudolf II finally restored him in 1602. These kreuzers were struck in the first years after that restoration, when Dernbach was simultaneously rebuilding Catholic institutional authority in the abbey and fighting legal battles to reclaim properties alienated during his exile. The coinage was as much an assertion of resumed sovereignty as a practical monetary issue.
Balthasar von Dernbach had already been expelled from Fulda once — driven out in 1576 by a Protestant-sympathizing chapter that resented his aggressive Counter-Reformation policies — before Emperor Rudolf II finally restored him in 1602. These kreuzers were struck in the first years after that restoration, when Dernbach was simultaneously rebuilding Catholic institutional authority in the abbey and fighting legal battles to reclaim properties alienated during his exile. The coinage was as much an assertion of resumed sovereignty as a practical monetary issue.