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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;AnYangMan, post: 3279384, member: 87271&quot;]A tad bit late, but Santa also dropped by here in the Netherlands! And lets just say he has quite the taste. It is hard to capture a true-to-life image of this vibrant toning, so just imagine it twice as pleasing in hand <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie2" alt=";)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]866725[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Lüneburg, Ducal/Welfic coinage. This bracteate came attributed to Wilhelm Longospada (Longsword, 1195 – 1213), but recent scholarship seem to prefer an attribution to his father Heinrich der Löwe (the Lion), 1142 – 1195. While Heinrich initially held the title of Duke of Saxony, his Saxonian domains were confiscated in 1180 after he refused to aid the holy roman emperor Frederick Barbarossa against the Lombard League. They eventually reconciled and Heinrich was allowed to keep his former allodial estates around Lüneburg and Braunschweig. After his death in 1195, these estates were passed on to his three sons, with his youngest son Wilhelm, raised at the court of Richard the Lionheart, acquiring the area around Luneburg after a formal division took place in 1202. Afterwards, he styled himself as ‘duke of Lüneburg’, although the legal status of this claim is up for debate. Where exactly this bracteate fits within this political framework remains to be seen, it is quite possible that the mint just continued to strike this type for an extended period of time.</p><p><br /></p><p>I absolutely fell in love with the toning of this piece as soon as I saw it. I usually don’t care an awful lot about things like that, but since I lacked an example of the bracteate-phenomenon I figured I might as well acquire such a nice one. To be honest, I was quite surprised by the size of this bracteate. I knew that they were thin &amp; flimsy, and at 0.59 gram expected something around 12mm, not nearly double that (23mm)!</p><p><br /></p><p>All in all, I am glad that I... uh... <i><b>that Santa</b></i> was able to add this piece of medieval diversity to my collection. Please post related medievals or other beautifully toned pieces below![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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