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Denier - Boleslaus I the Cruel

Issuer Kingdom of Bohemia
Year 935-972
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Reference(s) Cach#29
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Reverse description Central field displays a schematic triangular or architectural motif, likely a stylized church facade or gabled structure rendered in a highly abstracted manner, composed of geometric lines and pellets. Horizontal bar elements beneath the triangle suggest steps or a base, consistent with early Premyslid iconographic conventions referencing ecclesiastical themes. The design is enclosed by a border of pellets or star-like ornaments arranged around the irregular flan. The execution is characteristic of the primitive die work associated with early medieval Bohemian hammered coinage under Boleslaus I.
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Additional information

Boleslaus I earned his epithet by murdering his brother Wenceslas in 935 — the same Wenceslas later canonized and adopted as Bohemia's patron saint. The killing was almost certainly politically calculated rather than impulsive, removing a rival whose pro-Carolingian sympathies Boleslaus found incompatible with his own ambitions. He then held the Bohemian duchy against Otto I's forces for fourteen years before submitting in 950 and redirecting his considerable military energy eastward against the Magyars.

Cach 29 places this denier among the earliest documented Bohemian coinage, struck at a moment when the dynasty was still negotiating what Christian rulership would mean for its minting authority.

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