Philip Christopher von Sötern was elected Archbishop of Trier in 1623, immediately inheriting a territory caught between Spanish and French imperial ambitions during the Thirty Years' War. He would eventually place Trier under French protection in 1632 — a decision that prompted the Spanish to arrest him in 1635, beginning a captivity that lasted nearly a decade. These bracteate deniers, struck from a single die through a thin silver flan, were produced across the most turbulent years of his tenure before that arrest ended regular minting under his authority.
Philip Christopher von Sötern was elected Archbishop of Trier in 1623, immediately inheriting a territory caught between Spanish and French imperial ambitions during the Thirty Years' War. He would eventually place Trier under French protection in 1632 — a decision that prompted the Spanish to arrest him in 1635, beginning a captivity that lasted nearly a decade. These bracteate deniers, struck from a single die through a thin silver flan, were produced across the most turbulent years of his tenure before that arrest ended regular minting under his authority.