W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

.
considerable
344 The Coins of Europe
burg. It may not therefore be at all surprising that for a
space of time the Austrians held
1
ransylvama
or Steben- disputed possession of a territory occupied by
mrgen. ea jous an(j turbulent feudatories and bordered j by
such neighbours as the independent waiwodes or voivodes of
Transylvania, who retained under their government a large
portion of the kingdom, and might naturally be more acceptable
to the Hungarians than the German conquerors. Consequently
from the moment when the Magyars were first
handed over to Ferdinand of Austria about 1526 to the
beginning of the eighteenth century, the annals of the
waiwodes run parallel with those of the German sovereigns ;
and it may be received as evidence of the preponderant power
of the former, that the coinage for Hungary within that epoch
was that of the waiwodes rather than that of the emperors,
and that currency in all metals, bearing their titles, was
struck at the recognised native mints.
We possess a singularly instructive and picturesque, and
nearly unbroken, succession of money, chiefly following the
familiar lines at first, and subsequently diverging into a
more original style, as on the curious thalers of Sigismund
Bathori about 1590, or borrowing from the Polish types, as
on a copper solidus of 1591 and a silver 3-groschen piece
of 1606. An invariable accessory to the portraits, so far
as we have been able to examine them, is the aigret or
heron's crest, which seems to occupy the place of a crown or
fillet. The titles readable on the Transylvanian coins differ
under various reigns, and seem to have been governed by
current circumstances. Both on those of early date mentioned
below and of the seventeenth century from about
1620 to 1660, the legends claim on behalf of the prince to
be King-elect of parts of Hungary, Prince of Transylvania,