Denier 'Dickpfennig'

Weissenburg Abbey, founded in the seventh century in Alsace, held minting rights granted by the Carolingians and maintained them through the upheavals of the Investiture Controversy. This issue dates to the abbacy during the reign of Frederick Barbarossa, a period when imperial monasteries across the region were asserting economic autonomy through small but deliberately distinctive local coinages. The term "Dickpfennig" — thick penny — distinguishes this dumpy, high-relief fabric from the bracteate tradition spreading through much of contemporary Germany.