Obol - Andrew II

Andrew II's reign was defined less by monetary policy than by the chronic financial desperation that followed his disastrous Fifth Crusade expenditures and the concessions he was forced to make in the 1222 Golden Bull — Hungary's answer to Magna Carta, signed under baronial duress just seventeen years after John of England's. To raise revenue, Andrew farmed out minting rights and salt revenues to foreign lessees, including Muslim Ishmaelites and Jews, a practice that scandalized the Hungarian church and was explicitly condemned in the Golden Bull itself.