1 Denier Petit - Nicholas V

The Comtat Venaissin was papal territory in southern France — administratively distinct from Avignon itself — governed directly by Rome since Philip III of France ceded it to the Holy See in 1274. Nicholas V, elected in 1447, was the pope who negotiated the end of the Council of Basel schism and absorbed the last antipope, Felix V, back into Roman obedience. That consolidation of papal authority made issues from his reign, including this provincial billon denier, politically charged in ways the denomination's modest weight would never suggest.