Blanc Guénar - John IV

John IV's Blanc Guénar was struck during one of the most turbulent stretches of Breton ducal history. John had spent years in English exile after the War of Succession, returning to Brittany in 1379 only to navigate the competing demands of the French crown and his old English allies — a balancing act that defined both his foreign policy and, less obviously, his monetary program. The guénar name itself derives from the Latin denarius through a Breton phonetic corruption, a small linguistic trace of how thoroughly the duchy's minting tradition had developed independently of Paris.