Obole Bracteate - Henry of Aurich

The Abbey of Lorsch, one of the great Carolingian monasteries of the Rhineland, held imperial abbey status and the right to strike coins — a privilege confirmed repeatedly by successive emperors. Henry of Aurich served as abbot during a period when Lorsch's political independence was increasingly contested by the Archbishop of Mainz, who ultimately absorbed the abbey's temporalities in the early thirteenth century. These bracteate oboles represent some of the final expressions of Lorsch's minting autonomy before that absorption began to take hold.