Denier - Anonymous

The bishops of Basel held the right to strike coinage from at least the mid-tenth century, a privilege granted by the Ottonian emperors as part of the broader policy of delegating regalian rights to ecclesiastical lords along the Rhine frontier. By the late twelfth century, episcopal mints in this region were producing anonymous bracteate and deniers in considerable variety, with attribution often resting on a single hoard find or die-linkage study. HMZ 1#209 sits in a narrow attribution window precisely because no bishop claimed the issue by name.