1 Batzen

Kempten's status as a Free Imperial City was perpetually contested — the Abbots of Kempten, who ruled the surrounding territory, clashed repeatedly with the city's burghers over jurisdictional and fiscal rights throughout the early sixteenth century. The right to strike coin was itself a political statement, and the Batzen denomination, introduced across southern German cities in the late fifteenth century, became the standard workhorse of trans-Alpine trade precisely during this window.

The Batzen equaled four Kreuzer, a valuation that made it practical for market transactions without requiring larger silver coinage. Kempten's civic mint output from this period survives in small numbers.