Denier Bracteate - John I

John I ruled Palatinate-Zweibrücken from 1569 until his death in 1604, a tenure marked by the duchy's firm Calvinist turn — he expelled Lutheran clergy and enforced Reformed doctrine with unusual consistency for a small Rhenish territory. The bracteate denier itself is an anachronism by this date; thin single-sided silver pfennig-weight pieces of this type were a medieval convention that persisted in certain German territories well past their technological and economic usefulness, largely because local exchange habits changed more slowly than minting practice.