Denier Bracteate - Ladislaus I the Short Kraków mint

Ladislaus I — known as "the Short" for his reportedly diminutive stature — spent decades fighting to reunify a fragmented Poland before finally being crowned king in 1320, the first such coronation at Wawel Cathedral in over a century. These bracteates were struck during that long consolidation campaign, when his control of Kraków was itself contested. The extreme thinness of bracteate fabric at this weight makes surviving examples almost invariably cracked or chipped at the flan edge.