Denier with bust and greek cross

These early Frankish deniers were struck under the Merovingian monetary system — still deeply fragmented, with minting rights dispersed across bishops, abbots, and local monetyers rather than centralized under royal authority. The extreme lightness of surviving examples reflects a prolonged debasement across the seventh century, during which Frankish silver coinage shrank steadily in both weight and fineness from earlier Merovingian tremisses. Prou's classification of this type places it among the transitional issues predating the Carolingian monetary reform of the 750s–790s, when Pippin III and later Charlemagne imposed standardized weights and consolidated minting control.