Denier Bracteate

Bracteates of this period were struck on flans so thin that any design pressed into one face showed through as a mirror impression on the other — a consequence of the hammered single-die process, not a flaw. The type proliferated across the German-speaking territories during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries partly because local lords, bishops, and imperial minsteries alike held minting rights, producing a fragmented coinage deliberately renewed at regular intervals through Renovatio monetae — the forced exchange of old issues for new at a discount, which effectively functioned as a periodic tax on held wealth.