Pfennig

The Abbey of Saint Gall held minting rights granted by the Ottonian emperors in the tenth century, but by the early thirteenth century its monetary authority was increasingly contested by the growing town of Saint Gall itself — a conflict that would eventually strip the abbey of independent coinage privileges entirely. This issue falls squarely in that contested period, produced under Abbot Ulrich von Sax or his immediate successor.

The broad, thin fabric characteristic of these bracteate-influenced southern German pfennigs made them highly susceptible to damage in circulation, which accounts for the difficulty in locating undamaged survivors today.