Obol - Pepin the Short

Pepin the Short's monetary reform of 755 — or thereabouts, the precise date remains debated — systematically reorganized Frankish coinage around a heavier silver denier standard, making the obol, its half, a theoretically tidy subdivision that saw comparatively little actual production. The near-total absence of reference numbers across Nouchy, Prou, and Gariel is not a cataloguing oversight; it reflects genuine rarity in the surviving record.

Pepin's reform also transferred minting authority progressively toward royal control, pulling it away from the ecclesiastical and aristocratic moneyers who had dominated under the Merovingians.