Gold Guilder - Nicolas II of Châtelet

Nicolas II of Châtelet acquired the lordship of Vauvillers in the mid-sixteenth century and exercised the right to strike gold coinage — a privilege jealously guarded by minor Burgundian lords long after the French crown had moved to curtail feudal minting. The Dy féodales reference places this squarely among the rarer issues of private seigneurial coinage, a category that became increasingly difficult to defend legally as royal monetary ordinances tightened through the 1540s and 1550s.