Denier with keys - Charles I

Charles I of Anjou struck these deniers following his conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily in 1266, a campaign backed by papal financing and framed as a crusade against the Hohenstaufen Manfred. The keys in the design reflect his authority over territories in close political alignment with the papacy — Charles was a deliberate cultivator of that relationship, and it paid in crowns.

Billon coinage from his Angevin mints varied considerably in silver content as his reign stretched across competing financial demands, including the disastrous Sicilian Vespers revolt of 1282, which stripped him of the island and forced a costly, ultimately futile military response until his death in 1285.