Denier Bracteate - Udalschalk of Eschenlohe

Udalschalk von Eschenlohe served as Bishop of Augsburg from 1184 until his death in 1202, a pontificate that coincided with the height of imperial bracteate coinage in the German-speaking lands. Augsburg sat astride critical Alpine trade routes, and episcopal mint rights were both economically and politically consequential — bishops who controlled silver coinage controlled commerce moving between Italy and the northern empire. Bracteates of this region and period are notoriously thin and fragile, and surviving examples without cracks or edge losses are genuinely uncommon.