Pfennig - Frederick the Handsome

Frederick the Handsome's claim to the Duchy was violently contested from the outset — his father Albert I was assassinated in 1308, the very year this coinage begins, stabbed by his own nephew on the banks of the Reuss River. Frederick then spent much of his reign locked in a bitter dispute with Louis IV of Bavaria over the German throne, culminating in his capture at the Battle of Mühldorf in 1322. He spent years as Louis's prisoner before an unusual arrangement saw him released on parole — a medieval rarity. Pfennigs of this type were struck across that entire turbulent span, which complicates precise dating within the series.