Brûlé of 16 Sols - Ernest of Bavaria

Ernest of Bavaria's appointment as Prince-Bishop of Liège in 1581 was a straightforwardly political act — the Wittelsbachs were aggressively accumulating ecclesiastical territories across the Holy Roman Empire, and Liège was a prize. The brûlé coinage emerged from severe monetary disorder in the southern Low Countries during the early 1580s, when Spanish military campaigns disrupted trade networks and drained silver from circulation. Copper emergency issues filled the gap.

The term "brûlé" — burned — likely references the fire-blackened appearance these coins acquired during the annealing process, or possibly their rapid destruction by later monetary reforms.