Leszek the White ruled the Duchy of Kraków intermittently across a turbulent period of Piast fragmentation, during which Polish territories were divided among competing princes with no stable central authority. Bracteates of this type — struck on foil-thin flans from a single die — were a pragmatic response to silver scarcity, maximizing the number of coins that could be produced from limited bullion. At 0.08 g, there is almost nothing to work with metallurgically.
The Kop(-) reference indicates this type was unassigned or unrecorded in Kopicki's corpus, which is itself telling. Attribution to Leszek and the Kraków mint rests on stylistic and contextual grounds rather than documentary evidence.
Leszek the White ruled the Duchy of Kraków intermittently across a turbulent period of Piast fragmentation, during which Polish territories were divided among competing princes with no stable central authority. Bracteates of this type — struck on foil-thin flans from a single die — were a pragmatic response to silver scarcity, maximizing the number of coins that could be produced from limited bullion. At 0.08 g, there is almost nothing to work with metallurgically.
The Kop(-) reference indicates this type was unassigned or unrecorded in Kopicki's corpus, which is itself telling. Attribution to Leszek and the Kraków mint rests on stylistic and contextual grounds rather than documentary evidence.