Obole

The bishops of Geneva exercised mint rights throughout the medieval period, though their authority over coinage was persistently contested by the counts of Geneva and, later, the House of Savoy. This friction was not merely political theater — it directly affected which authority's name or symbol appeared on locally circulating silver, and forgeries exploiting the ambiguity were documented in episcopal records as early as the thirteenth century.

The obole, as half the denier, was the smallest practical unit of account in Genevan markets. HMZ 1#1-294Ba places this type within a production window spanning nearly three centuries, suggesting a remarkably stable — if loosely supervised — local coinage tradition that persisted well past the point when most comparable episcopal mints had been consolidated or suppressed.