Robert de Lenoncourt held the see of Metz from 1ésente 1525 until his death in 1555, navigating the city through one of its most turbulent decades — the imperial siege of 1552, when Henry II of France seized Metz from Charles V in a campaign that effectively ended Habsburg ambitions in Lorraine. This thaler predates that siege by a single year, struck while Metz still operated under the administrative framework of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Davenport reference places it squarely in the German thaler series despite the thoroughly French character of the issuing see — a jurisdictional ambiguity that defined Metz for much of the sixteenth century.
Robert de Lenoncourt held the see of Metz from 1ésente 1525 until his death in 1555, navigating the city through one of its most turbulent decades — the imperial siege of 1552, when Henry II of France seized Metz from Charles V in a campaign that effectively ended Habsburg ambitions in Lorraine. This thaler predates that siege by a single year, struck while Metz still operated under the administrative framework of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Davenport reference places it squarely in the German thaler series despite the thoroughly French character of the issuing see — a jurisdictional ambiguity that defined Metz for much of the sixteenth century.