Denier - Frédéric

Frédéric de Genève held the bishopric during a period when the bishops of Geneva exercised genuine temporal authority over the city, a power increasingly contested by the counts of Geneva through the eleventh century. Episcopal minting rights in Geneva derived from an imperial grant, and these deniers circulated as the dominant medium of local exchange before the comital dynasty established its own competing issues. The dies for this type are poorly documented, and specimens vary considerably in centering and flan quality — not from careless workmanship, but from the rudimentary single-blow striking methods standard to the period.