Aspron Trachy Small module

The Latin Empire was a Frankish Catholic imposition on a Greek Orthodox city, and its coinage reflects the awkwardness of that occupation. The crusaders who sacked Constantinople in 1204 inherited a Byzantine monetary system they barely understood, and the aspron trachy they continued striking were crude imitations of the scyphate tradition — debased well below the electrum and billon standards the Byzantine treasury had maintained. The small module specifically is associated with the later decades of the Latin occupation, as the empire contracted territorially and financially under pressure from Nicaea.