While carrying out a restoration project at one of German’s most famous Gothic churches, a team of restorers discovered a large and valuable collection of coins, hidden in four sacks that had been stuffed inside a cavity in the leg of a statue approximately 400 years ago. All of the coins were minted in the 17th century, making it clear they had been hidden away sometime during the 1600s.
The coin stash was found inside St. Andrew’s church in the village of Eisleben, which is located in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany. Eisleben is best-known for being the hometown of the legendary Protestant reformer Martin Luther, and St. Andrew’s is famous because it was Luther’s home church near the end of his career.
In total there were 816 coins hidden in the four bags, some of which were gold or silver (the majority where 17th century German pennies, which were worth more at the time than the word “penny” might suggest).
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While there is no way to know for sure why the money was hidden in the statue, archaeologists and historians believe it had something to do with the ongoing hostilities associated with the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), an incredibly violent and bloody conflict fought largely over religion that led to the deaths of millions of peoples throughout Central Europe. The destruction and loss of life was greater in Germany than anywhere else, and Swedish soldiers regularly plundered Eisleben during the period when the fighting was at its most intense.
A Tragic Loss at a Time When There Were Many
St. Andrew’s Church is where Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer who wrote the “Ninety-five Theses” against corruption in the Roman Catholic Church, delivered his final four sermons in 1546. Based on the dates on the newly recovered coins, it appears that the sacks that held them were hidden away in the leg of a sandstone statue dedicated to a pair of church patrons (a count and a countess) around 1640, according to the curator for Germany’s State Coin Cabinet at Saxony-Anhalt, Ulf Dräger.
Kneeling statues of a count and countess installed in St. Andrew’s church in Eisleben (the coin hoard was found in the leg of the count). (Ulf Dräger, Halle).
“It is nothing short of a miracle that the treasure did not come to light sooner,” Dräger told Live Science. While it will take time for coin experts to calculate the collection’s value, he said, “at the moment I can only say that it is a huge fortune. Much more than a [17th century] craftsman could earn in a year.”
The gold coins were wrapped in paper and identified as having belonged to the church treasury.
“However, it is not the bell pouch for the Sunday collection,” Dräger noted . “Instead, it is the collected income from special services provided by the pastors,” including weddings, baptisms and funerals.
The valuable hoard includes a gold coin known as a golden angel, gold ducats and double ducats, silver coins known as thalers, half-thalers and quarter-thalers, and several hundred pennies.
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The researchers who’ve studied the coins are convinced they were hidden away because of events related to the Thirty Years’ War. This fierce and prolonged conflict started over efforts by the Holy Roman emperor to secure Catholic control of Central Europe, but it expanded later into a series of violent disputes motivated by various political, territorial and commercial rivalries.
In Saxony-Anhalt it was the Swedish army that was feared the most, as they frequently invaded German towns and villages and forced the locals to surrender their valuables and their money, in return for their lives (and often times people were killed anyway).
“Eisleben lost around half of its population between 1628 and 1650,” Dräger said. “[It was] a picture of constant war horror.”
Given the grim situation the people of Eisleben faced at the time, it would have made some sense for church officials to hide funds in a place where enemy soldiers could never find them. The recovered coin hoard would have represented a small fortune at the time, and it is a matter of speculation as to why the person or persons who hid it never retrieved it. It could be assumed they had been killed or taken prisoner, and taken their knowledge of where the money was with them to the grave. But there is no way to know that for sure.
Collage of various paintings depicting scenes of warfare and destruction during Europe’s Thirty Years’ War. (DavidDijkgraaf/CC BY-SA 4.0).
Regardless of the circumstances, the loss of this hoard was likely seen as a tragic occurrence at the time, Dräger noted.
“This makes the find a highly significant historical and real testimony, not only for Eisleben, but also for the history of the state of Saxony-Anhalt in the heart of Europe.” he stated.
Not For Sale at Any Price
Historical records show that St. Andrew’s church maintained a parish fund that was used to provide pensions and health care for its pastors from 1561 on. Its possible such a fund existed before, and that may have been the money that was found in the statue’s leg.
It must be noted that there was no documentation stashed along with the coins that could explain exactly where they’d come from or to whom they belonged. It is entirely possible that the coins were stolen by an individual thief who thought he was being clever by hiding them right under the noses of church officials. Its also possible that the coin collection belonged to an eccentric church official who liked to keep his savings hidden in unlikely places, essentially using the leg of the statue as his “piggy bank.”
The one thing that can be said with certainty is that the coins are worth much more today than they were when they were first collected. But their exact worth on the open market will remain unknown, since the Lutherstady Eisleben Protestant Parish Association (their current owner) has no plans to sell these fascinating historical artifacts anytime soon. At the moment they are each being studied individually, and in a few months they will likely be put on display at the Moritzburg Art Museum in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt.
Top image: A sampling from the hoard of 816 coins, including several valuable gold and silver pieces, found at St. Andrew’s Church in Eisleben, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.
Source: Ulf Dräger, Halle.
By Nathan Falde
Source: www.ancient-origins.net