Freiburg im Breisgau operated its own mint under rights granted by the Habsburgs, and by the 1370s the city was issuing small silver fractions to meet the grinding demand of local market transactions that larger denominations couldn't serve. The Rappen coinage of this region takes its name from the raven — a reference tied to the arms of the Counts of Freiburg — and by 1376 the Rappen monetary union had begun drawing together several southwestern German and Swiss cities into a coordinated currency bloc, one of the more pragmatic monetary arrangements of late medieval Germany.
At a quarter gram of silver, these were essentially the smallest practical denomination the technology of the period could reliably produce.
Freiburg im Breisgau operated its own mint under rights granted by the Habsburgs, and by the 1370s the city was issuing small silver fractions to meet the grinding demand of local market transactions that larger denominations couldn't serve. The Rappen coinage of this region takes its name from the raven — a reference tied to the arms of the Counts of Freiburg — and by 1376 the Rappen monetary union had begun drawing together several southwestern German and Swiss cities into a coordinated currency bloc, one of the more pragmatic monetary arrangements of late medieval Germany.
At a quarter gram of silver, these were essentially the smallest practical denomination the technology of the period could reliably produce.