German States, Sacrum Imperium Romanum (HRR Holy Roman Empire)

Reign: probably Henry the Long (1173 – 1227)

Mint: Braunschweig-Lüneburg, Duchy

Date: ca. 1195/1227 AD

Nominal: Bracteate (Brakteat)

Material: Silver Sheet metal

Diameter: 20mm

Weight: 0.49g

Reference: Bonhoff 102

Reference: Berger 494

Reference: Reitz 16 a

Description: Lion standing right, head facing; pellet to right

Comment: Henry (V) the Elder (the Long) of Brunswick (born around 1173/74; died 28 April 1227 in Brunswick) from the Guelph family was Count Palatine of the Rhine from 1195 to 1212. The eldest son of Duke Henry the Lion and Matilda of England, he had been married since January or February 1194 to Agnes of Staufen, the heiress daughter of Count Palatine of the Rhine, Conrad of Staufen. This marriage produced three children, Henry the Younger, Irmengard of the Rhine and Agnes. In his second marriage he was married to Agnes of Landsberg, daughter of Margrave Konrad II of Lower Lusatia (died 1266), from 1211. This marriage remained childless. Since his only son had died childless in 1214 at the age of 17, Henry the Elder designated his nephew Otto the Child, the son of William of Lüneburg, as heir to his estates in 1223. Henry the Elder was buried in Brunswick Cathedral. It is highly probable that Henry donated the St. Gallus relic to the castle chapel of St. Galli at Lauenrode Castle outside Hanover, thereby expressing his secular patronage and feudal lordship over Conrad II. expressed