Gold Florin with tower - John Coci

The Bishopric of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux — a tiny diocese in the Drôme, never a major political power — gained the right to strike gold coinage under episcopal authority during the mid-fourteenth century, a period when the French crown's grip on feudal minting was fitful at best. John Coci held the see during one of the most disruptive stretches of the Black Death's spread through the Rhône Valley, which reached the region in 1348 and stripped some communities of half their population within months.

Florin-type coinage from minor French ecclesiastical mints of this period is genuinely scarce; few survived in any quantity, and fewer still passed through enough hands to generate the documentary trail that larger mint outputs leave behind.