Sterling - Thomas of Bourlémont SIGNVM CRVCIS

The bishops of Toul occupied an awkward position throughout the fourteenth century — nominally vassals of the Holy Roman Emperor yet perpetually entangled with the French crown and the county of Bar. Thomas of Bourlémont, who held the see from 1330 to 1353, issued this sterling during a period when episcopal minting rights in the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun were under sustained pressure from competing territorial lords. The SIGNVM CRVCIS type follows the broader Lotharingian sterling tradition derived from English penny prototypes that had circulated through the region since the late thirteenth century.