Denier - Béla III

Béla III was the first Hungarian king to introduce written record-keeping into royal administration, a reform directly tied to his years at the Byzantine court before his accession — he had been groomed as heir to Manuel I Komnenos before dynastic circumstances redirected him to Buda. His reign saw Hungary's treasury assessed at income rivaling that of the English crown, a figure recorded in a contemporary papal survey. These deniers were struck in quantity, but the thin fabric and soft silver of the type left them vulnerable to creasing and fragmentation in circulation.