Gold Écu 'with Eagle' - Louis II de Male

Louis II de Male issued this écu in direct imitation of the French royal gold écu, a calculated political gesture from a count who spent much of his reign navigating between the competing pressures of France and England. The eagle differentiates it from its Capetian model — a deliberate assertion of Flemish comital authority rather than mere monetary copying.

The dating coincides with the economic disruption following the Black Death, which hit Flemish cloth towns catastrophically in 1349–1351, depopulating the very merchant class that handled gold coinage.