Denier - Charlemagne Saintes

Saintes — ancient Mediolanum Santonum — was one of the secondary mints activated early in Charlemagne's reign, before the sweeping monetary reform of around 793–794 standardized weights and types across the Frankish realm. The deniers struck in this pre-reform window are typologically heterogeneous, reflecting the decentralized minting inherited from the Merovingians. This piece dates to the joint reign period, 768–771, when Charlemagne ruled only the western Frankish territories alongside his brother Carloman I, whose sudden death in 771 left him sole ruler.

Morrison's corpus remains the essential reference for sorting these early Carolingian mint attributions, many of which rest on single specimens.