Brûlé van 6 sols of 1/4 aidant Liege brûlé of 6 sols 1565 Gerard of Groesbeek Prince Bishopric Chestret 521 gF/VG+

Prince Bishopric of Liege, brûlé of 6 sols, also called a quarter patard or quarter aidant, dated 1565, hammer struck at the Liege mint.

Obverse: the arms of the prince bishop, surmounted by the perron of Liege, with the date at either side. Legend GERARDVS · A · GROISBEECK · EPIS · LEOD, in full Gerardus Ab Grosbeek Episcopus Leodiensis, Gerard of Groesbeek, Bishop of Liege.

Reverse: a floriate cross cutting through the legend and ending in pine cones, with a large dot at the centre and in each angle. Legend DVX · BVLLO · COM · LOSSEN, in full Dux Bullonensis Comes Lossensis, Duke of Bouillon and Count of Loon.

References: de Chestret 521, Dengis Liege 930.

Gerard of Groesbeek was born in 1517 at Kuringen Castle near Hasselt, into a family that came from Guelders. He was a canon and later dean of the chapter of Saint Lambert in Liege when he was elected prince bishop on 5 June 1564. On 3 June 1565 he made his solemn entry into Liege, and in that same year a food shortage struck the region, upon which he stepped in to relieve the need. As early as 2 November 1564 he had fixed the rates of the coinage by ordinance and moved against clipped pieces, and later he also fixed the legal rate of the foreign coins that were admitted. Small copper pieces such as this brûlé were exactly the money in which such measures were felt in daily trade. In 1570 the county of Horn came to the prince bishopric, in 1576 the abbey of Stavelot followed, and in 1578 Pope Gregory XIII made him a cardinal. He kept the principality out of the Eighty Years War as far as he could and died in 1580 in Liege, where he was buried in Saint Lambert's Cathedral.

This piece is struck off centre.

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