Schilling Throned Leodegar

Lucerne's civic coinage of this period navigated a peculiar constitutional tension: the city was legally bound by the monetary ordinances of the Swiss Confederation while simultaneously asserting the kind of independent minting authority that larger imperial cities took for granted. The schilling series of this era reflects that ambition in metal. Billon was the practical choice for small-denomination civic issues across the Confederation — not a compromise, but the expected medium for everyday exchange in a market town still clearing grain and leather.

The Wielandt reference places this among a tightly sequenced die study; the distinction between 18t and neighboring varieties turns on minor heraldic details documented through surviving die marriages rather than archive records.