The Narbonne mint was one of the more strategically significant in Charlemagne's reformed monetary system, operating in a city only recently wrested from Visigothic and then Arab influence — the Saracens had held Narbonne until 759, just decades before this issue. The monetary reform of 793-794, which standardized the heavier denier at roughly 1.7g theoretically, produced wildly variable actual weights across the empire's mints; Narbonne examples consistently run light, as this piece illustrates.
The Gariel and Prou references place this among a well-documented but modestly surviving type from the southern Frankish mints.
The Narbonne mint was one of the more strategically significant in Charlemagne's reformed monetary system, operating in a city only recently wrested from Visigothic and then Arab influence — the Saracens had held Narbonne until 759, just decades before this issue. The monetary reform of 793-794, which standardized the heavier denier at roughly 1.7g theoretically, produced wildly variable actual weights across the empire's mints; Narbonne examples consistently run light, as this piece illustrates.
The Gariel and Prou references place this among a well-documented but modestly surviving type from the southern Frankish mints.