STEPHAN III THE GREAT VOIVODE OF MOLDAVIA 1457-1504 AR DUCATI .59g 13mm 11h

Description

STEPHAN III THE GREAT VOIVODE OF MOLDAVIA (ROMANIA) 1457-1504
AR DUCATI .59g 13mm 11h (TYPE 2 VARIETY 2 was written on holder)
AUROCHS HEAD W STAR BETWEEN HORNS ROSETTE LEFT CRESCENT R
MONETA MOLDAV
DOUBLE CROSS ON SHIELD WITH THE NAME OF STEPHAN AROUND
STEPHANUS VOJ EWO
very very rare Moldovian coin of Stephan III the Great
I found a catalog in Russian by Byrnja and Russev with a drawing of this coin
on line--#26 in their catalog
By the way, picture #3 is upside down
I WILL SHIP OVERSEAS ONLY THROUGH THE GLOBAL SHIPPING PROGRAM
Aurochs, also known as urus, is an extinct species of large wild cattle that inhabited Asia, Europe and North Africa and is the ancestor of domestic cattle.  The last known of the species died in 1627
Stephen was b
orn in 1433 in Borzesti to Bogdan II (1449-51) and Maria Oltea, and was a direct descendant of Stephen The Great c1000 AD.  His father was killed in a raid led by his uncle Petru Aron which caused a Civil War to break out and forced Maria and Stephen to take refuge, 1st in Transylvania and then at the court of Vlad III Dracul (Count Dracula), his 1
st
cousin in 1457.  With Vlad’s assistance he brought together a band of 6000 horsemen and was victorious against Petru Aron  at Doljesti and was crowned prince under King Kazimierz IV Jagiellon of Poland.  He successfully fought off an invasion by the Hungarians at the Battle of Bala in 1467, stopped a Tartar invasion and invaded Wallachia in 1471 (since it had fallen into Ottoman hands).  He also defeated the Ottoman counterattack at the Battle of Vaslui in 1475 and finally concluded a Peace Treaty with Beyazid II that claimed independence for Moldavia in 1503.  In 1462 he was shot in the leg and received a wound that he never fully recovered from.  The wound was reinjured in a later battle when Stephen was trapped under a horse.  Doctors attempted to fix the leg many times, and finally cauterized it in 1504, unluckily, Stephen died 2 days later.  He was canonized as a saint and he Feast Day in the Roman Orthodox Church Calendar is July 2.
Moldavia was 1
st
mentioned by Jan Dlujusz who wrote that the Moldavians joined a military expedition by the Wallachians in 1342 against the Margraviate of Brandenburg.  In 1359, Bogdan  of Cohea crossed the Carpathians and took control of Moldavia, liberating it from Hungary.  Petru I became a vassal of Wladyslaw II of Poland in 1387 and in 1392, Roman I conquered Cetatea Alba which gave Moldavia an outlet into the Black Sea, a move which was soon challenged by the Turks and Poles.  The country was divided in a succession of wars that ended with the payment of tributes to the Ottomans.  Moldavia reached its pinnacle during the reign of Stephen III but afterward again clashed with the Ottomans Poles and Habsburgs. A period of crisis followed and Moldavia stopped producing its own coins and entered into the Great Turkish War.  Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania were united under Michael the Brave in 1600 and became a target of the Russian Empire in the 18
th
century.  It was split between the Russians and the Ottomans in 1775, united with Wallachia in 1857 and became part of Romania in 1881.