How Far Back Can We Go? Fifth Edition! Ended At 1461 Waiting On 1460 C. E. (A. H. 864)

1600: Battle of Nieuwpoort
one of the few dates that appears in all history book of the children in Holland and Belgium and is memorized by many
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nieuwpoort

Jeton from Utrecht with a scheme of the battlefield and on the reverse the coat-of-arms of Utrecht



In all representations we look from a landview (Ghent and Brussels in our back) towards the North Sea (Oceanus Germanicus): Maurice his army is on the left flank having crossed the Yzer and the army of Alber is on the right

Pen drawing from 1600 wich the same representation of the two armies. It should be mentioned that the army of Maurice depended much on English and Scottish elite troops.


The States General led by van Oldenbarnevelt had commanded prince Maurice - who did not like the idea at all - to move with a 12,000 strong army west of Oostende in order to take the pirate nest of Dunkirk. However, the archduke Albert was prepared and moved with an equally sized army to meet the prince on the beaches just North-East of the small river Yzer (well known from the front during the trench warfare in 1914-1918). The battle was exhausting for both armies: more than 2000 casualties on both sides. In the end the army of Maurice was claimed victorious, but it was also severely beaten and weakened so that the Dutch/English forces could only retreat to Oostende.

Here is a second jeton from 1600: this one was made in Middelburg, Zeeland, showing on the reverse the weapons won from the enemy. The color of this copper piece is quite nice.



So the Battle of Nieuwpoort had no real winner, and the great danger and risk that van Oldenbarnevelt had caused for the army of Maurice, was the origin of a deep division and increasing rivalry between the two leaders. After decades of opposition and internal dispute this ended with the arrest and execution of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt in 1619.
The Battle of Nieuwpoort was one of the rare large scale encounters between armies in the open field and such type of encounter between the Spanish Netherlands and the United Provinces would never happen again; as we have seen the past days and we'll see next weeks, a much more standard military operation for those days was the siege (and capture) of a fortified city.

Below a painting of the battle fields (that would reappear as killing fields centuries later) by Sebastiaen Vrancx.

Here is another Schilling from Polish-occupied Livonia, but dated AD 1600:

I've considered whether I should put this (apparently) overstruck wire kopek of Boris Godunov under 1599, 1600, or 1601; one of the strikes is from 1600/01, and the other is apparently 1599/1600.

I decided that 1600 is probably the safer option...



The main strike, from 7109 AM (1600/01 AD).
You can kind of see HOPθ at the bottom of the first picture; HO is short for Novgorod (mint), while Pθ is the date (109).



The other strike, tentatively attributed to 7108 AM (1599/1600 AD).


Yet again, I apologize for the terrible photos.
To be fair, the coin is rather tiny (15x12 mm and 0.65 grams).

Original thread for the coin - I'm not actually sure whether it should have been moved to the Ancients forum, since the date is pretty much exactly at the boundary.

I have (even worse) photos of another, non-overstruck, Boris Godunov wire kopek, dated 7107 AM (1598/9 AD); I will hopefully be posting it tomorrow (under 1599).

1600 -- Palatine Countship of Pfalz-Zweibrucken, 3 kreuzer:

@tdziemia, thanks for the nice comments on my coins. My favourite area is Sigismund III and I am picking up some new knowledge from you.
I hope to get some more time in the near future to study all my Sigismund coins purchased at flea markets and dealers on my trips to Krakow.

The momemntum is good. Keep it going through the 16th century!

Hers is an Albus from the German Archbishopric of Trier dated AD 1599:

1599 Jeton from Middelburg, Dugn.3470



'Resistance of Maurits against Mendoza in the Bommelerwaard'

Obv. Mozes with Aaron and Hur on mountain top
army of the Israelites in battle with Amalek VICTORIA A DEO PRECIBVS

Rev coat-of-arms Zeeland CVI TRIBVTVM TRIBVTVM

Maurice of Nassau and Francisco Hurtado de Mendoza were measuring their strength for years; taking a city in one place loosing an other stronghold at another place. In general Maurice outperformed Mendoza, so that during the ten years of Maurice (±1590 - 1600) much of the territories conquered the previous decade by the brilliant Alexander Farnese, were won back by the United Provinces.

Mendoza was not admired, however and notorious for his often brutal and ruthless way of acting. Below a painting of the general.