Paul Ziegler held the See of Chur from 1503 until his death in 1541, an unusually long episcopate that coincided almost exactly with the opening decades of the Swiss Reformation — a movement that directly threatened the temporal and spiritual authority of precisely such prince-bishops. That his mint continued producing coinage throughout this turbulent period reflects how stubbornly the Bishopric of Chur maintained its traditional rights in the Graubünden even as reformed cantons were dismantling ecclesiastical structures elsewhere.
Paul Ziegler held the See of Chur from 1503 until his death in 1541, an unusually long episcopate that coincided almost exactly with the opening decades of the Swiss Reformation — a movement that directly threatened the temporal and spiritual authority of precisely such prince-bishops. That his mint continued producing coinage throughout this turbulent period reflects how stubbornly the Bishopric of Chur maintained its traditional rights in the Graubünden even as reformed cantons were dismantling ecclesiastical structures elsewhere.