Denier Bracteate - Frederick I Frankfurt mint

Frederick Barbarossa held Frankfurt as an imperial domain directly under crown control, and the deniers struck there during the 1170s reflect the administrative push to consolidate minting rights away from ecclesiastical authorities. The bracteate form — struck on a single thin flan so that the design appears in relief on one side and incuse on the other — was by this period already dominant in the northern and central German minting tradition, though it never fully displaced the double-sided denier in imperial territories further west.

Hävernick's classification of this type as number 4 places it among the earliest attributed Frankfurt imperial issues.