Alfonso VII's assumption of the title Imperator totius Hispaniae in 1135 — the same year this issue begins — was not merely ceremonial posturing. It reflected a genuine, if short-lived, hegemony over the Iberian Christian kingdoms, with Navarre, Aragon, and Portugal all acknowledging his overlordship at the León ceremony. The meaja, as the smallest billon denomination in the Leonese monetary hierarchy, would have circulated almost exclusively among the poorest strata of urban markets.
AB#87 is among the more elusive of Alfonso VII's struck issues — billon at this weight degrades aggressively in soil, and surviving pieces with legible detail are genuinely scarce.
Alfonso VII's assumption of the title Imperator totius Hispaniae in 1135 — the same year this issue begins — was not merely ceremonial posturing. It reflected a genuine, if short-lived, hegemony over the Iberian Christian kingdoms, with Navarre, Aragon, and Portugal all acknowledging his overlordship at the León ceremony. The meaja, as the smallest billon denomination in the Leonese monetary hierarchy, would have circulated almost exclusively among the poorest strata of urban markets.
AB#87 is among the more elusive of Alfonso VII's struck issues — billon at this weight degrades aggressively in soil, and surviving pieces with legible detail are genuinely scarce.