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Demi Gros - Guillaume de Challant
| Issuer | Bishopric of Lausanne |
|---|---|
| Year | 1406-1420 |
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| Currency | Livre (10th century-1420) |
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| Obverse description | Standing frontal figure of a bishop in pontifical vestments, holding a crozier in the left hand and raising the right hand in benediction, positioned above a shield bearing the arms of Guillaume de Challant. The figure is rendered in the Gothic style typical of late medieval ecclesiastical coinage. The surrounding legend in uncial Latin characters reads G*D*CHAL AT*EP*LAVS, identifying the issuing bishop and the see of Lausanne. The overall composition is characteristic of episcopal coinage of the early 15th century, with the heraldic shield providing dynastic identification at the base of the design. |
|---|---|
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| Obverse lettering | G*D*CHAL AT*EP*LAVS` |
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| Additional information |
Guillaume de Challant governed the Bishopric of Lausanne during a period of acute tension between the bishop's temporal authority and the growing autonomy of the city's burghers — a conflict that would eventually strip the see of its secular power entirely by the mid-fifteenth century. Coinage like this demi gros was part of a deliberate assertion of that authority while it still held.
The Challant family were Valdostan lords by origin, and Guillaume's appointment was itself a product of Savoyard political maneuvering in the western Swiss territories.