Denier - Béla II

Béla II ruled despite being blind — blinded as a child by order of King Stephen II, who had his eyes gouged out along with those of his father Álmos to eliminate dynastic rivals. That he survived to reign at all was a political accident, sheltered in monasteries until Stephen died without issue. His coinage, struck in the fractured monetary environment of early Árpád Hungary, reflects a mint operation still heavily influenced by Byzantine weight conventions rather than Western European denarius traditions.