Pfennig - Bernard of Carniola Tschatesch

Bernard of Carniola served as Duke of Carinthia from 1202 until his death in 1256, one of the longer tenures among the Spanheim dynasty's final generation. Carinthian pfennigs of this period belong to the broad family of Friesacher pfennige — thin, bracteate-style denars that dominated trans-Alpine trade routes during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and circulated well beyond their nominal issuing territory into Hungary and the Balkans.

The Tschatesch designation identifies the mint site, a location whose output is catalogued with relative precision in the Corpus Nummorum Austriacorum precisely because so few issuing authorities in this region kept consistent records.