Denier - Leo III

Leo III became pope in 795 under circumstances that nearly ended his pontificate before it began — attacked in the streets of Rome by nephews of his predecessor Hadrian I, he was allegedly blinded and had his tongue cut out, only to recover and flee to Charlemagne's court at Paderborn in 799. The political resolution of that crisis led directly to the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor on Christmas Day 800, one of the most consequential acts in medieval European history.

This denier belongs to the narrow window before that coronation, when Leo's temporal authority in Rome remained genuinely contested.