Groschen - John XXII

John XXII, the Avignon pope who issued this coin, was the man who formally inherited the Comtat Venaissin as a papal possession following Philip III's cession of the territory to the Holy See in 1274 — but it was John who first treated it as a serious minting jurisdiction rather than an administrative afterthought. His pontificate saw a dramatic expansion of papal financial machinery, largely to fund his prolonged conflict with Louis IV of Bavaria and to sustain the Avignon curia's considerable appetite for bureaucratic expenditure. The Comtat groschen series begins here, with this type.