Medieval Silver Historical Coin Silver Groot ½ 'Botdrager' - Lodewijk van Male - Count of Flanders (No reserve price)

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Medieval silver coin: AR Groot or half 'Botdrager', struck between 1346-1384 under Lodewijk van Male (Louis II of Flanders), Count of Flanders.

-> The obverse depicts the Flemish lion seated beneath an elaborate tournament helmet, expressing both the military prestige of the count and the heraldic identity of Flanders.

Obverse: Lion with tournament helmet seated to left.
Reverse: Cross with legend around.

Diameter: ± 25.2 mm
Weight: ± 2.29 g

Condition: fine - very fine

Certificate of Authenticity (PDF) is available upon request for all lots with a hammer price of €100 or higher.

Lodewijk van Male, also known as Louis II of Flanders, was Count of Flanders from 1346 to 1384. He was the son and successor of Count Louis I of Flanders and Countess Margaret I of Burgundy (daughter of King Philip V of France).

After taking part in the Battle of Crécy on 26 August 1346, where his father was killed, he succeeded as count and moved away from his father’s pro-French policy. He favoured a course more attuned to the interests of his subjects, carefully balancing between the rival kings of France and England, who were then at war.

His inheritance was one of the wealthiest and most highly urbanised territories in medieval Europe, but his reign was repeatedly troubled by conflict with the powerful Flemish cities, especially Ghent.
He ruled in a turbulent age shaped by the Hundred Years’ War and is remembered both for strengthening princely authority and for his long conflicts with the powerful Flemish cities.

Louis of Male introduced significant administrative reforms that strengthened the machinery of government in Flanders and helped pave the way for later Burgundian rule. Yet in private he lived with notable splendour, keeping a lavish court, staging tournaments, and maintaining a menagerie, while also fathering numerous illegitimate children.
The financial pressures of such princely display led to increasing taxation, which stirred resentment in the major Flemish towns and formed part of the background to the great urban revolt that ended with the defeat of the Ghent rebels at Roosebeke in 1382.

His daughter Margaret was married to Philip the Bold of Burgundy in 1369, a dynastic move that helped pave the way for the later union of Flanders and Burgundy. The foundation of the Burgundian Dynasty helped establish the Burgundian Netherlands, which would become one of the wealthiest and most culturally influential regions of late-medieval Europe.

-> Botdrager
This silver groot, traditionally known as a half botdrager, belongs to an influential coinage introduced under Louis II of Flanders. Its larger counterpart, the double groot, was first issued in 1365 and represented the first silver coin with a value of two groats produced in the Low Countries. The successful design was subsequently imitated by several neighbouring principalities.

The obverse depicts the Flemish lion seated beneath an elaborate tournament helmet. The reverse bears a floriated cross dividing the inner inscription Moneta Flandrie - “Coin of Flanders” - and is surrounded by the religious formula Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Although collectors traditionally call this type a botdrager or half botdrager, contemporary Flemish records referred to the larger coin as the lion d’argent, or “silver lion”, while it was known elsewhere as a plak. The picturesque name botdrager probably originally belonged to a later coin of Philip the Bold, on which a lion carries a heraldic shield on its back. This was compared to a labourer carrying a bodde, or basket. Early numismatists subsequently applied the name to the earlier helmeted-lion coinage of Louis of Male as well.