Gold Florin - Gaston Phoebus

Gaston III of Béarn — "Phoebus," a nickname earned for his blond hair and physical vanity, not any celestial symbolism — was among the most powerful independent lords in late 14th-century France, controlling Béarn with a sovereignty he defended ferociously against both the French crown and the English. His right to strike gold coinage was itself a political statement: Béarn was not French soil under his reading of feudal law, a position he argued in person before the Paris Parlement in 1368, one year before this florin series began.

Gaston died in 1391 during a bear hunt at Orthez, collapsing mid-meal with no legitimate heir, ending the Foix-Béarn line's independent minting entirely.