(Vendue pour $53.0)

1437, Royal France, Charles VII. Bronze "Pashal Lamb" Counter Token / Jetton. aXF!

Mint Place: Bourges Mint Period: 1418-1437 Denomination: Pashal Lamb Jetton / Counter Token References: Mitchiner Jetons, page 196 no. 541 var. (here different legend!). Condition: Minor wear on high pionts, nice greenish patina, otherwise about XF for this early bronze issue! Diameter: 27mm Material: Bronze Weight: 3.51gm

Obverse: Nimbate pashal lamb standing left with one foot raised and head reversed to view cross-topped banner. Seamless inscription around. Legend: + PR. MISRVIAR VT . PAMVIVR . NI

  Reverse: Triple stranded straight cross fleuretty in simple 4-arched tressure. Marginal inscription around.   Legend: . CVS . SVC . CVS . SVC .

In the fourteenth century Bourges (a city in central france on the Yèvre river, Province of Berry), became the capital of the Duchy of Berry. The future king of France, Charles VII (reigned 1422-1461), sought refuge there in the 1420s during the Hundred Years' War. His son, Louis XI, was born there in 1423. In 1438, Charles VII decreed the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. During this period, Bourges was also a major capital of alchemy.

Although Charles VII's legacy is far overshadowed by the deeds and eventual martyrdom of Joan of Arc, he himself was also responsible for successes  unprecedented in the history of the Kingdom of France. When he died,  France was for the first time since the Carolingian Emperors united  under one ruler, and possessed its first standing army, which in time would yield the powerful gendarme cavalry companies, notable in the wars of the sixteenth century; he had also established the University of Poitiers in 1432, and his policies had brought some economic prosperity to his  subjects. His rule as a monarch had at times been marked by  indecisiveness and inaction, and his ending years marked by hostility  between himself and his elder son; nonetheless, it is to his credit  that he left his kingdom in condition better than he had found it.

Charles VII (22 February 1403 – 22 July 1461), called the Victorious (French: le Victorieux) or the Well-Served (French: le Bien-Servi), was King of France from 1422 to his death, though he was initially opposed by Henry VI of England, whose Regent ruled much of France from Paris.

He was a member of the House of Valois, the son of Charles VI,  but his succession to the throne was left questionable by the English  occupation of northern France. He was, however, famously crowned in Reims in 1429 through the endeavors of Joan of Arc to free France from the English. His later reign was marked by struggles with his son, the eventual Louis XI.

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