The Teutonic Order's coinage authority in Hall survived long after the Order itself had been stripped of its Prussian territories by the Hohenzollerns in 1525. By 1603, the Order operated primarily as a religious-military institution under Habsburg protection, and its Haller mint functioned as much as a statement of jurisdictional survival as anything else. Maximilian I here is Maximilian of Austria, Grand Master from 1590 to 1618, whose tenure coincided with the Order's gradual reorganization into a purely ecclesiastical body.
Large multiple-ducat strikes of this type were almost certainly presentation pieces rather than circulating currency. The .986 fineness places it among the purer gold issues of the period.
The Teutonic Order's coinage authority in Hall survived long after the Order itself had been stripped of its Prussian territories by the Hohenzollerns in 1525. By 1603, the Order operated primarily as a religious-military institution under Habsburg protection, and its Haller mint functioned as much as a statement of jurisdictional survival as anything else. Maximilian I here is Maximilian of Austria, Grand Master from 1590 to 1618, whose tenure coincided with the Order's gradual reorganization into a purely ecclesiastical body.
Large multiple-ducat strikes of this type were almost certainly presentation pieces rather than circulating currency. The .986 fineness places it among the purer gold issues of the period.