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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 5390349, member: 110350&quot;]The date (1583) and everything associated with it in European society. Read what [USER=74712]@FitzNigel[/USER] wrote.&nbsp; The traditional end of the European &quot;Middle Ages&quot; is in the mid- to late-15th century (1400s), generally considered the Late Middle Ages. The line is not completely arbitrary, although of course things changed at different times and in different ways in different parts of Europe. In Italy, the Renaissance was already in full flower by 1500. After all, Leonardo was born in 1452 and Michelangelo in 1475.&nbsp; The book &quot;The Waning of the Middle Ages&quot; by the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga was published in 1914 (I read it in college, somewhat later than that!), but as far as I know it&#039;s still considered an important book that&#039;s worth reading. It&#039;s largely about the 1300s and 1400s if I remember correctly.</p><p><br /></p><p>In general, 1500 is considered the beginning of the &quot;Early Modern&quot; period (der frühen Neuzeit in German, I believe). Think of everything that had already happened or begun by the time your coin was minted in 1583.&nbsp; The Reformation. The beginning of the Counter-Reformation almost 40 years earlier.&nbsp; The Renaissance.&nbsp; Machiavelli&#039;s &quot;The Prince,&quot; written 70 years earlier. The decline of feudalism and the rise of centralized states and royal power.&nbsp; The &quot;discovery&quot; and exploitation of the New World. The expulsion of the Jews from France and Spain and many major cities in German-speaking lands. In England, the break with Rome. The Elizabethan Age. Shakespeare!&nbsp; Nobody would characterize any of that as &quot;medieval.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>And certainly by 1583 milled coinage was well-established in Continental Europe, as was large silver coinage like the thaler or taler.&nbsp; England was somewhat behind: despite some experiments with milled coinage in 1561 during Elizabeth&#039;s reign, it wasn&#039;t really established in England until the Frenchman Nicholas Briot joined the Mint as chief engraver in 1628 during the reign of Charles I. See <a href="http://www.kenelks.co.uk/coins/earlymilled/earlymilled.htm#" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.kenelks.co.uk/coins/earlymilled/earlymilled.htm#" rel="nofollow">http://www.kenelks.co.uk/coins/earlymilled/earlymilled.htm#</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>And, hey, I can trace my own ancestry, generation by generation, back to my 11th great-grandfather Joseph d&#039;Alschwyl, born ca. 1540 and died in 1610, a physician who worked in Basel and resided in Allschwil (in Switzerland southwest of Basel on the border with Alsace) from 1567, under the protection of Bishops Melchior de Lichtenfels and Jacques-Christophe Blarer de Wartensee. One of the first Jews with permission to work in Basel.* He certainly wasn&#039;t medieval!</p><p><br /></p><p>So that&#039;s why I don&#039;t consider a French silver coin minted in 1583 to be medieval.</p><p><br /></p><p>* See Gunter Böll, <i>Dokumente zur Geschichte der Juden in Vorderösterreich und im Fürstbistum Basel</i> <i>(1526-1578)</i>, in 115 <i>Zeitschrift des Breisgau-Geschichtsvereins &quot;Schau-ins-Land&quot;</i> (1996), pp. 19-44 at p. 43 n. 62 (Joseph in Allschwill from 1567); see also Achilles Nordmann, <i>Über den Judenfriedhof in Zwingen und Judenniederlassungen im Fürstbistum Basel</i>, in <i>Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde </i>, Vol. 6 (Basel, 1907) (available on Google Books), pp. 120-151 at pp. 140-141.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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