Gold Écu 'Chaise d'Or' - Albert of Bavaria

Albert of Bavaria governed Holland as regent, then count, through a period of persistent factional warfare between the Hoeken and Kabeljauwen — rival noble blocs whose conflict destabilized the county for much of the fourteenth century. This coin was struck amid that turbulence, when asserting fiscal and dynastic credibility through high-quality gold coinage was itself a political act. The chaise d'or type was a deliberate imitation of the prestigious French royal model, a calculated borrowing of Valois monetary prestige by a Wittelsbach ruler working to consolidate his position in the Low Countries.