Denier - Charlemagne Venasque

Venasque — now a quiet village in the Vaucluse — held sufficient ecclesiastical weight in the Carolingian period to operate its own mint, a privilege tied to its status as a bishop's seat predating the region's full Frankish integration. This denier belongs to the earliest phase of Charlemagne's monetary reform program, before the 793–794 reforms at Frankfurt standardized the silver content and weight across the empire. The Prou gap is telling: even the most comprehensive cataloguers of Carolingian coinage couldn't pin down a confirmed example, making the Nouchy and Depeyroux references the more reliable anchors for attribution.