Catalog
Denier 'Vierzipfliger'
| Issuer | Habsburg-Laufenburg, Counts of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1180 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Hammered |
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| Obverse description | A lion passant regardant facing left, depicted in profile with its tail raised and curled in an S-shaped form above its back. The rendering is characteristic of the Rhenish bracteate and denier tradition of the late 12th century, with schematic, flat-relief workmanship. The field is unadorned, and no legend or inscription is present. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Blank reverse, as is typical of this type of thin hammered denier of the period, produced without a reverse die design. The plain field shows only the incuse impression of the obverse striking. |
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| Additional information |
The Vierzipfliger — "four-pointed" in reference to the distinctive quatrefoil pellet arrangement — was struck by the Laufenburg branch of the Habsburgs before the family's consolidation into a single dominant line. The Laufenburg counts controlled strategically vital Rhine crossings, and their right to coin was as much a toll mechanism as a sovereign declaration. Wielandt's attribution places this firmly within the Breisgau series, a regional coinage landscape notoriously difficult to assign without die-link analysis given the proliferation of near-identical types across competing lordships in the Upper Rhine.