Denier - Baldwin IV Saint-Omer

Baldwin IV, called "the Bearded," inherited Flanders in 988 and spent much of his reign in open conflict with the French crown, allying opportunistically with the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II and later switching sides. His control of Saint-Omer — a commercially vital town on the Aa river with direct access to English wool trade routes — made it a logical site for a comital mint. The Saint-Omer denier is one of the earliest attributable issues of the Flemish comital series, predating the more standardized output of his successors by several decades.