1632 Taler

The Thirty Years' War was one of the most devastating conflicts in European history. By the time it ended in 1648, an estimated 8 million people - roughly 1.4% of the population of Europe - were dead. (For reference, the First World War killed about 1.7%.)

The war began with Protestant Bohemian nobles throwing representatives of the Catholic King of Austria out of a window in the Second Defenestration of Prague (yes, this was not the first time they had thrown Catholics out of a window). What followed was a multi-decade religious and geopolitical bloodbath that drew in Bohemia, the Palatinate, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, the Protestant League, Prussia, Saxony, and Transylvania against Austria, Spain, Bavaria, and the Catholic League.

During the Swedish phase of the war, King Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden defeated the Imperial and Catholic armies at the Battle of Breitenfeld near Leipzig on 7 September 1631 - a date that happened to fall on the Jewish festival of Purim. The Protestant clergy seized on the coincidence: just as Esther had delivered the Jews from Haman, Gustavus had delivered the Protestants from the Catholic League. The day became known among the Lutherans as the "Purim of the Evangelicals."

A year later, on 7 September 1632, the city of Erfurt - then under Swedish occupation, with its main Catholic cathedral newly converted to Protestant use - held a festival to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the victory, and this taler was struck to commemorate the day.

The obverse features the Hebrew Tetragrammaton (the old Hebrew name of God, used by some Protestants in this period) at the center of a radiant sun, above the legend DEXTERA TUA DOMINE PERCUSSIT INIMICUM - "Thy right hand, O Lord, has struck the enemy" - quoting Exodus 15:6.

The reverse carries a long Latin inscription: "Honor and praise be unto God, three times the best and greatest, who has granted Gustavus Adolphus, King of the Swedes, Goths and Wends, victory over the Imperial and League army near Leipzig on 7 September 1631 - Purim Day of the Evangelicals, celebrated in 1632 at Erfurt on 7 September."

Davenport-4546. A landmark coin of the Thirty Years' War and one of the most theologically pointed thalers ever struck.