Denier Bracteate - Henry II

Henry II of Hessen ruled during the long mid-fourteenth century consolidation of Landgraviate authority, a period when bracteate coinage — struck on a single thin flan so that the design punches through as a mirror image on the reverse — was already an archaic technology by most German standards. The Rhine and central German regions had clung to it longer than most, but by the 1370s these issues were being phased out in favor of thicker bilateral pfennigs. This piece likely represents one of the later survivals of the form in Hessian minting.