The assemblage of coins found in the Old Town district of Lublin (6a, Wincentego Pola St., presently known as Archidiakońska St.) on 1 July 1981 consists of 21 false groschen of Sigismund III Vasa (1587–1632) and 2 fragments of unspecified coins. As a result of the research analysis, it has been found that the coins were minted in tin-coated copper. Despite the fact that the dates are decipherable only on 10 groschen coins, it may be inferred from the identity of the coin dies that 15 of them (71.4%) bear the year 1608, while 5 (23.8%) – 1607. No date has been determined for only one coin. The groschen of 1607, struck with the use of one pair of coin dies, imitate the bust / eagle type. This particular variation tends to prevail also among the pieces with the date 1608 (13 out of a total number of 15 pieces), which had been coined with the use of two pairs of dies. 1 groschen with a bust and 2 groschen with a crown image had been struck by means of some other coin dies. The fact that the forged coins were found at the site of the former townhouse owned by the mayor Jan Szembek (since 1608) allows us to presume that they may have been deposited there as a result of some administrative action taken against the illegal practice. Beginning from the early decades of the 17th century, conditions for the growth of such practices had been created and fuelled by the atmosphere of the increasing economic crisis and the resulting perturbations spreading across the monetary markets of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

ABSTRACT:

The coins of Sigismund III Vasa (1587–1632) were one of the most numerous foreign specimens to be found all over the Ottoman Empire. They were part of the coin circulation in the Bulgarian lands at the end of the 16th and in the first half of the 17th century. The Sigismund’s coins were preferred also as hoarding issues and that is why they are often presented in coin hoards from that time. The aim of this study is to present the variety of denominations of the ruler found in the region of Varna and to explain their significance and the role in the coin circulation in the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th century.

The article talks about three visits paid in 1609, 1611 and 1612 by prince Janusz Radziwiłł and Daniel Naborowski – one of the most eminent poets of the Polish Baroque – at the court of king James I in London. These visits were related to the wedding plans – Władysław IV Vasa, son of king Sigismund III Vasa, was supposed to marry English princess Elizabeth Stuart. In her honour Naborowski wrote a famous poem entitled "Na oczy królewny angielskiej" ("For English Princess’ Eyes"). During the second visit at the English court, 1st November 1611, Radziwiłł and Naborowski were probably watching the staging of Shakespeare’s "The Tempest" in the Banqueting House in the Palace of Whitehall. The author of the article points out a possible source of Shakespeare’s play which was a text written by a Polish humanist Marcin Kromer, widely known in Europe of those times thanks to its latin translation. Kromer’s text described a story of young prince Sigismund (the future king Sigismund III Vasa) who was born on an island in MalDrm Lake where Eric XIV of Sweden imprisoned his parents: Eric’s brother John III of Sweden and his wife Catherine Jagiellon. A Polish poet Daniel Naborowski might have seen and possibly met William Shakespeare.