Sterling - John II of Avesnes

John II of Avesnes became Count of Hainaut in 1280 following a protracted dynastic struggle with the House of Dampierre over control of Flanders and Hainaut — a conflict ultimately settled by the 1287 arbitration of Edward I of England, who awarded Hainaut to the Avesnes line. This sterling was struck in the decade after that settlement, as John leveraged English commercial ties and imitated the sterling pennies then circulating across the Low Countries in enormous volume.

The type is catalogued by Mayhew as one of the Continental sterling imitations, a coinage phenomenon driven by the dominance of English silver in northern European trade during the late thirteenth century.