Denier Bracteate - Walter II

Walter II of Arnstein ruled a modest Thuringian county whose coinage output was limited by both territory and political reach. The bracteate format — struck on a single thin flan so that the design pressed through as a mirror image on the reverse — was the dominant coinage technology across central German territories in the twelfth century, adopted partly because it required less silver per blank than a standard two-sided strike. Arnstein's issues in this period are among the thinner survivals from the Saxon-Thuringian minting zone, and the county itself was absorbed into the Archbishopric of Mainz shortly after Walter II's death.