Denier - John of Geneva

John of Geneva held the joint bishopric of Valence and Die from 1282, a pairing that had been administratively united since the mid-twelfth century under imperial and then French overlordship. These billon deniers were struck under the monetary rights the bishops had exercised — with periodic interruption — since the Carolingian period. The late thirteenth century was a moment of particular friction between the bishops and the Counts of Valentinois, whose competing claims over the Drôme valley made the assertion of episcopal coinage rights as much a political act as a fiscal one.