Max Gandolf von Kuenburg ruled as Archbishop of Salzburg from 1668 until his death in 1687, and his tenure is remembered less for his coinage than for his brutal 1677 expulsion of Protestants from the Defereggen valley — roughly 800 people driven out in winter. The timing of this issue and that expulsion are not coincidental; Kuenburg was aggressively reasserting Catholic authority throughout his territories, and the mint at Salzburg operated as a direct instrument of that sovereign power.
The Zöttl reference places this among a well-documented but thinly collected series of fractional thalers from his reign.
Max Gandolf von Kuenburg ruled as Archbishop of Salzburg from 1668 until his death in 1687, and his tenure is remembered less for his coinage than for his brutal 1677 expulsion of Protestants from the Defereggen valley — roughly 800 people driven out in winter. The timing of this issue and that expulsion are not coincidental; Kuenburg was aggressively reasserting Catholic authority throughout his territories, and the mint at Salzburg operated as a direct instrument of that sovereign power.
The Zöttl reference places this among a well-documented but thinly collected series of fractional thalers from his reign.