Henry II inherited this denomination from his father Francis I but made it his own almost immediately upon accession in 1547, with the crosslet variant distinguishing his issues from the earlier Henrician and Franciscan douzains that had proliferated across the kingdom. The douzain — worth twelve deniers — was the workhorse of mid-sixteenth-century French commerce, and billon at this fineness was a deliberate policy response to chronic small-change shortages that had plagued provincial markets for decades.
Struck at multiple mints simultaneously under royal letters, attribution to a specific workshop depends entirely on the mint mark, which Dy royales 996 catalogs across a substantial range of issuing facilities.
Henry II inherited this denomination from his father Francis I but made it his own almost immediately upon accession in 1547, with the crosslet variant distinguishing his issues from the earlier Henrician and Franciscan douzains that had proliferated across the kingdom. The douzain — worth twelve deniers — was the workhorse of mid-sixteenth-century French commerce, and billon at this fineness was a deliberate policy response to chronic small-change shortages that had plagued provincial markets for decades.
Struck at multiple mints simultaneously under royal letters, attribution to a specific workshop depends entirely on the mint mark, which Dy royales 996 catalogs across a substantial range of issuing facilities.