Aspron Trachy

The Latin Empire was a colonial imposition — Frankish and Venetian crusaders who sacked Constantinople in 1204 and then scrambled to maintain a Byzantine monetary system they barely understood. These aspron trachea continued the scyphate billon tradition of their Byzantine predecessors largely because the Latin rulers had no viable alternative; the indigenous moneyers knew the dies, the flans, and the alloy, and replacing them would have collapsed commerce in the occupied city.

The billon content degraded noticeably across the Latin occupation period, reflecting chronic fiscal pressure on a regime perpetually under military threat from Nicaean forces to the east. The empire fell when Michael VIII Palaiologos retook Constantinople in 1261 without significant resistance.