Denier - Philip II

Philip II of France formally absorbed the Duchy of Brittany into the French royal orbit following the death of Arthur I in 1203, and these deniers were struck during the contested years when French administrative control was being consolidated over a duchy that had previously looked toward the Plantagenets. Arthur's disappearance — almost certainly murdered on Philip's orders — ended Angevin claims to Brittany and left the duchy without a functioning native duke, creating the administrative vacuum under which this coinage was produced.