20 Euros Visigothic Tremissis of Leovigildo

Leovigild, who ruled the Visigothic kingdom from 568 to 586, was the first barbarian king in the West to strike gold coinage in his own name rather than in the name of the Byzantine emperor — a deliberate break from the fiction of Roman continuity that his predecessors had maintained for generations. His tremissis coinage effectively announced political independence through monetary policy. The Royal Mint's 2011 recreation replicates the type struck at Toledo, which Leovigild established as the Visigothic capital.