Denier Bracteate

Konstanz issued these thin, single-sided bracteates during the years of the Council of Konstanz, the great church assembly that sat from 1414 to 1418 and drew tens of thousands of visitors — clergy, diplomats, merchants, and their retinues — into a city of perhaps six thousand residents. The surge in commercial activity created acute demand for small-denomination silver, and local minting authority expanded accordingly. Nau 12 falls within the sequence tied directly to that period of extraordinary municipal stress and opportunity.