Denier Bracteate - John and Albrecht

This bracteate was struck under the joint rule of John and Albrecht of the House of Welf, during a period when Brunswick-Lüneburg was divided among competing dynastic branches following the death of Otto the Child in 1252. The practice of co-issuing coinage between siblings was a deliberate political instrument in the fragmented Welf territories, where minting rights were among the most jealously guarded prerogatives of lordship.

Bracteate production in this region peaked through the mid-thirteenth century before giving way to thicker bilateral pfennigs. The Denicke and Berger references place this type firmly within the Brunswick civic series rather than the episcopal issues, a distinction that matters for provenance.