Denier - Charlemagne Tours mint, monogram

The monogram type was introduced as part of Charlemagne's monetary reform of 793–794, which unified Frankish coinage under a heavier silver standard and suppressed the myriad regional types that had proliferated under his predecessors. Tours was among the handful of mints authorized to strike under the new system, its output feeding the commercial traffic of the Loire valley. The reform also shifted control away from ecclesiastical and aristocratic moneyers toward direct royal oversight — a deliberate concentration of fiscal authority that mirrored Charlemagne's broader administrative program.

The Tours fabric tends to show slightly uneven flans compared to output from Melle or Rouen.