Denier - Benedict IV and emperor Louis III

Benedict IV's pontificate coincided with the catastrophic fragmentation of Carolingian authority in Italy. Louis III — "the Blind" — was crowned emperor by Benedict in 901, the last papal coronation of a Carolingian emperor before the title effectively collapsed. His reign lasted barely two years; captured by Berengar I in 905, Louis was blinded and stripped of all imperial pretension, never to return to Italy. The joint coinage acknowledging both pope and emperor was therefore struck within an extraordinarily compressed window, which explains its persistent rarity in the numismatic record.