Christian of Brunswick, the "mad bishop" who never took holy orders and spent his episcopate waging war across the Holy Roman Empire, issued the original Pfaffenfeind ("priest-enemy") Taler in the early 1620s using silver melted down from looted church plate — a deliberate provocation made literal in the metal itself. The 1988 piece is a modern restrike or replica, almost certainly produced for the collector market during the sustained West German interest in Thirty Years' War commemoratives.
Christian of Brunswick, the "mad bishop" who never took holy orders and spent his episcopate waging war across the Holy Roman Empire, issued the original Pfaffenfeind ("priest-enemy") Taler in the early 1620s using silver melted down from looted church plate — a deliberate provocation made literal in the metal itself. The 1988 piece is a modern restrike or replica, almost certainly produced for the collector market during the sustained West German interest in Thirty Years' War commemoratives.