Groschen with lily - Henry of Lancaster

Henry of Lancaster held Bergerac as part of his extensive French possessions during a period of acute Anglo-French tension that would culminate in the Black Prince's campaigns. The lily on this groschen is not decorative deference to French royal taste — it reflects Lancaster's deliberate positioning as a legitimate feudal lord operating within Valois administrative norms, even as Edward III pressed his dynastic claim to the French crown. Lancaster himself was among the most capable military commanders of the mid-fourteenth century, present at the siege of Calais in 1347.

The date range coincides almost exactly with the catastrophic arrival of plague in southwestern France.