Denier Bracteate - Conrad IV Ulm mint

Conrad IV's tenure as King of Germany was defined almost entirely by conflict — first against the papal-backed anti-kings Heinrich Raspe and Wilhelm of Holland, then in his ultimately fatal campaign to secure the Kingdom of Sicily. Ulm, as an imperial city with direct loyalty to the Staufen dynasty, remained one of the few reliable minting centers during these decades of fragmentation. Bracteates from this mint are characteristically thin even by the standards of south German single-sided coinage, a consequence of the reduced silver supply reaching imperial mints as Staufen control eroded through the 1250s.