Maximilian of Berghes held the see of Cambrai from 1556 until his death in 1562, a period during which the southern Netherlands remained under Habsburg authority following Charles V's abdication. The courte — a low-denomination copper piece — was the workhorse of everyday exchange in the region, where ecclesiastical lordships retained minting rights as a feudal privilege increasingly at odds with centralizing Spanish imperial policy.
Cambrai occupied an anomalous position: technically part of the Holy Roman Empire rather than the Spanish Netherlands proper, which complicated the bishop's monetary authority in practice.
Maximilian of Berghes held the see of Cambrai from 1556 until his death in 1562, a period during which the southern Netherlands remained under Habsburg authority following Charles V's abdication. The courte — a low-denomination copper piece — was the workhorse of everyday exchange in the region, where ecclesiastical lordships retained minting rights as a feudal privilege increasingly at odds with centralizing Spanish imperial policy.
Cambrai occupied an anomalous position: technically part of the Holy Roman Empire rather than the Spanish Netherlands proper, which complicated the bishop's monetary authority in practice.