1 Pfennig - Frederick II

Frederick II of Austria — "the Quarrelsome" — was in near-constant conflict with Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen throughout the 1230s, at one point being stripped of his duchy entirely in 1236 and outlawed from the empire. Austrian coinage continued to be struck regardless, a practical necessity that politics could not interrupt. He died without legitimate heirs at the Battle of the Leitha in 1246, extinguishing the Babenberg male line and triggering a succession crisis that would eventually deliver Austria to the Habsburgs.