Denier Bracteate - Theodoric I of Erbach

Theodoric I of Erbach held the archiepiscopal see of Mainz during one of its most politically turbulent stretches — his tenure coincided with the tail end of the Council of Basel's confrontation with Pope Eugenius IV, and Mainz itself was repeatedly drawn into the succession disputes and electoral conflicts that destabilized the middle Rhine throughout the 1440s and 1450s. Bracteates of this type circulated as small-denomination local currency in a region where the Archbishop's mint rights were perpetually contested by rival secular lords.