Mite / Maille - Joan of Merwede

Joan of Merwede ruled the small Brabantine lordships of Gerdingen and Stein as a widow following the death of her husband, and this copper mite is among the few numismatic traces her administration left behind. Female-issued coinage from minor Low Countries lordships in the mid-fifteenth century is genuinely uncommon — most such territories either ceased independent minting or deferred to a male heir.

The Vanhoudt reference G1731 places this firmly within the regional billon and copper issues catalogued for the southern Low Countries, where dozens of tiny lordships exercised minting rights that larger powers repeatedly tried to suppress.