Charles I of Anjou acquired Provence through his 1246 marriage to Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Ramon Berenguer IV, and immediately set about asserting monetary authority over a county that had circulated a patchwork of competing feudal issues. The denier mansois — a type named for the money of Le Mans, imported into southern coinage practice — became one of his instruments for that consolidation. Charles's ambitions extended well beyond Provence; by 1266 he had seized the Kingdom of Sicily from the Hohenstaufen, and Provençal coin production increasingly served those broader Italian campaigns.
Charles I of Anjou acquired Provence through his 1246 marriage to Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Ramon Berenguer IV, and immediately set about asserting monetary authority over a county that had circulated a patchwork of competing feudal issues. The denier mansois — a type named for the money of Le Mans, imported into southern coinage practice — became one of his instruments for that consolidation. Charles's ambitions extended well beyond Provence; by 1266 he had seized the Kingdom of Sicily from the Hohenstaufen, and Provençal coin production increasingly served those broader Italian campaigns.