Denier Bracteate 'Ewiger pfennig'

The "Ewiger pfennig" — literally "eternal penny" — takes its name from a monetary agreement binding participating towns to maintain a fixed, unchanging coinage rather than the periodic revaluation and re-minting cycles that plagued medieval German currency. Under the usual system, lords profited by calling in old coins and reissuing at reduced silver content; the eternal penny compact was a direct commercial resistance to that practice. Brunswick joined such arrangements as its merchant class demanded predictable exchange rates with Hanseatic trading partners.

The bracteate fabric — a single-sided striking on a thin flan — was by this period already archaic for northern Germany, a regional conservatism that persisted well into the fifteenth century.