Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Denier anonymous
| Issuer | Gandersheim, Abbey of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1080-1120 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Pfennig |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Frontal bust of a crowned abbess or sainted figure in high relief, rendered in the Romanesque style characteristic of late 11th- to early 12th-century ecclesiastical coinage. The figure is depicted facing forward with a nimbus or crown, the drapery executed in schematic parallel folds radiating from the shoulders. The bust is contained within a beaded or dotted inner circle, with a partially legible Latin legend in the surrounding field. The artistic treatment reflects the workshops associated with the imperial abbeys of Saxony during the Salian period. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | A bold cross pattée centered within a plain inner circle, the four arms of the cross extending to the ring, with pellets or wedge-shaped ornaments filling the angles between the arms. The overall design is typical of Ottonian and Salian ecclesiastical bracteate-precursor coinage from Lower Saxony. A partial Latin legend is visible in the outer field around the inner circle. The relief is moderately high, consistent with hammered production from a monastic mint. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Gandersheim was one of the most politically assertive imperial abbeys in the Ottonian and Salian periods, holding mint rights that predated many secular lords in the region. The right to strike coin was granted by the crown and periodically contested — the late eleventh century saw particularly sharp disputes between the abbesses and the bishops of Hildesheim over jurisdictional authority, a conflict that ran parallel to the broader Investiture Controversy tearing apart the German church.
Anonymous deniers of this type carry no abbess name, which likely reflects institutional rather than personal issuance during a period of disputed or transitional leadership.