Double Parisis - Henry of Lancaster

Henry of Lancaster held Bergerac as part of his substantial Aquitainian territories during one of the most disruptive periods of the Hundred Years' War. His right to strike coin there derived from English claims over Gascony — a privilege exercised selectively and often politically, as much to assert jurisdictional authority as to supply actual currency. The Double Parisis denomination itself was a French monetary unit, which makes its adoption here a deliberate act of practical accommodation to local commercial habits rather than any English monetary preference.

Henry died in 1361, and his daughter Blanche subsequently brought the Lancaster inheritance to John of Gaunt. Issues from the Bergerac lordship are scarce across all types; this particular piece sits at the intersection of a brief tenure and limited surviving documentation of the mint's output.