1/2 Penning

Struck under Sigurd I Jorsalfare — the first European king to lead a crusade in person — this issue falls within a period when Norwegian royal coinage was still deeply irregular in weight and fineness, reflecting a mint infrastructure inherited piecemeal from Anglo-Saxon and German influences. Sigurd's reign saw unprecedented Norwegian engagement with the wider Mediterranean world, including a celebrated naval campaign through the Strait of Gibraltar to the Holy Land between 1107 and 1110.

Skaare 85 is among the thinner, bracteate-adjacent issues of the period, struck on flans so small and light that attribution often depends on die linkage rather than any single visible feature.