Sterling - Thomas of Bourlémont COMES TVLENSI

Thomas of Bourlémont served as Bishop of Toul from 1328 to 1353, presiding over a see caught between competing pressures from the French crown and the Holy Roman Empire — Toul being one of the Three Bishoprics that sat uneasily on that frontier for centuries. His decision to strike sterlings in the early 1330s reflects the currency chaos of the period, when repeated French royal debasements drove merchants and ecclesiastical lords alike to issue their own coin on the stronger English sterling model. The COMES TVLENSI legend asserts his comital rights over the city, a jurisdictional claim the bishops of Toul had defended since the eleventh century.