KÖRTLING: COIN OF GÖTTINGEN
Körtling, 1538: City of Göttingen (Lower Saxony, Germany)
Principality of Göttingen — subdivision of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire, with Göttingen as its capital. It was split off from the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in 1286. In 1495 the Göttingen lands were incorporated as integral part of the newly established Brunswick Principality of Calenberg, with which they stayed united until the territory was merged into the Electorate of Hanover.
MONETA NOVA GOTTING: new coin (currency) of Göttingen.
Gothic letter G ("𝔊") inside an octilobe ornament (first symbol of the issuing city name).
A very notable feature of the coin: the date is indicated in Roman numerals in a very cumbersome format — MCCCCCXXXVIII, corresponding to the year 1538 in the Gregorian calendar.
Before the date are the letters "An - Dn", which may be an abbreviation of the Latin phrase "Anno Domini" ("in the year of the Lord" or "before Christ").
Gothic letter G ("𝔊") superimposed on a cross pattée.
This silver körtling was minted for over 120 years; gradually the weight of the coin decreased by a third — from about 1.5 grams for the 1429 specimen to 1 gram in 1555.
- Silver: 19 mm - 0.71 g
- Reference price: 29$
COIN KÖRTLING — WHERE & WHEN (coins catalog: by names & emitents)
- GERMAN STATES, 15th-18th centuries (City of Göttingen, City of Einbeck, City of Northeim, Bishopric of Würzburg, Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel...): körtling = 6 pfennig = 1/48 thaler
KÖRTLING as coin name.
Körtling — historical silver German coin of the 15th-18th centuries, characteristic mostly of the state formations of Lower Saxony.
Most numismatic sources indicate that the körtling was equal to 6 pfennigs or 1/48 of a thaler.
It is believed that the very first körtling dates back to 1429 and was issued by the Lower Saxon City of Göttingen. This coin was minted in a practically unchanged design for over 100 years in a row. It is this körtling that is the classic representative of the denomination, the most recognizable and widespread type.
Almost immediately (15th-16th centuries), coins that were as similar visually as possible (almost clones at first glance) began to be issued by neighboring German city-states. In my opinion, their peculiarity is very interesting considering the time of minting — both the obverse and the reverse of these körtlings contained the first letter of the name of the city of the issuer in Gothic script in the center of their design: "𝔊" (City of Göttingen), "𝔈" (City of Einbeck), "𝔑" (City of Northeim).
Later, neighboring German states joined the issue of körtlings, although these were completely different coins in appearance... And it is worth noting that these non-classical types are often not identified by some catalogs as the denomination "körtling", but instead are simply called "6 pfennigs", "6 hellers" or even "sechsling" (an analogue of körtling in Hamburg, Bremen...).
Separately, it is worth mentioning the coins of the Bishopric of Würzburg of the 16th-18th centuries with the mark "84" (equality to 1/84 of a thaler instead of 1/48 in the classic types mentioned above), which are also very often called körtling. Although there are researchers who consider this a mistake.
Regarding the origin of the name of the coin körtling, it is not possible to find unambiguous information. Only one theory is duplicated on several web resources, according to which the term originates from the German word "kurzling," which means "small groschen" or "short groschen". — What is the logic here, I don't understand... a mystery.
