Bracteate Pfennig - Ottokar II and successors Völkermarkt

Ottokar II of Bohemia controlled Carinthia from 1269 following the extinction of the Spanheim dynasty, and these bracteates were struck during his brief overlordship before his defeat and death at the Battle of Marchfeld in 1278 handed the region to the Habsburgs. The Völkermarkt mint — one of several active in Carinthia under Ottokar — produced these thin, single-sided pfennigs as the dominant small-denomination currency of the region, a minting tradition inherited from earlier Carinthian practice and entirely distinct from Bohemian coinage conventions Ottokar employed elsewhere in his sprawling but ultimately unstable dominion.