Obol - Béla IV

Béla IV's reign was defined almost entirely by the Mongol invasion of 1241–42, which devastated Hungary so thoroughly that contemporary sources describe entire regions depopulated and agricultural infrastructure collapsed for a generation. The subsequent rebuilding program — including an aggressive castle-construction campaign — required revenues that pushed royal minting into overdrive. Small silver fractions like this obol circulated heavily in that reconstructed economy.

The ÉH#256 attribution places this piece within a well-documented but numerically large series, making individual die attribution difficult without reference to the Corpus Antiquitatum Coinistarum volumes directly.