Denier Bracteate - Henry `the Admirable`

Henry "the Admirable" — Herzog Heinrich I von Braunschweig-Grubenhagen, so nicknamed for reasons the sources leave frustratingly vague — ruled Lüneburg during a period of constant Welf dynastic fragmentation, when the Brunswick-Lüneburg territories were being subdivided among competing heirs with almost every generation. Bracteates of this type were the dominant local currency of the Saxon north precisely because their thin, single-die fabric made them cheap to produce in quantity, though it also made them extraordinarily vulnerable to damage. Surviving examples without creases or rim losses are genuinely uncommon.