Pfennig - Rudolph IV Graz

Rudolph IV of Habsburg — the self-styled "Archduke," a title he invented and no contemporary ruler recognized — used his Graz mint aggressively during the 1360s as part of a deliberate policy to assert Styrian autonomy against both imperial oversight and rival dynastic claims. He forged the Privilegium Maius in 1358-59, a document fabricating special Habsburg privileges supposedly granted by Julius Caesar and Nero, in part to justify exactly this kind of independent monetary activity. The forgery was exposed by Petrarch himself, commissioned by Charles IV to examine it.