Odo, Count of Paris, was elected king in 888 by the western Frankish nobility after Charles the Fat proved incapable of defending the realm against the Vikings — a direct consequence of the siege of Paris in 885–886, which Odo himself had heroically led. His kingship was contested; the Carolingian claimant Charles the Simple never fully conceded legitimacy, and Odo spent much of his reign fighting on two fronts. The palace mint issues of his reign reflect this transitional moment, when comital authority was converting itself, imperfectly, into royal prerogative.
Type 1 of the palace series is the earlier of his denier types, struck before the mint practice stabilized.
Odo, Count of Paris, was elected king in 888 by the western Frankish nobility after Charles the Fat proved incapable of defending the realm against the Vikings — a direct consequence of the siege of Paris in 885–886, which Odo himself had heroically led. His kingship was contested; the Carolingian claimant Charles the Simple never fully conceded legitimacy, and Odo spent much of his reign fighting on two fronts. The palace mint issues of his reign reflect this transitional moment, when comital authority was converting itself, imperfectly, into royal prerogative.
Type 1 of the palace series is the earlier of his denier types, struck before the mint practice stabilized.