In the late 8th century Charlemagne, King of the Franks, reformed the coinage of his empire. He introduced a new weight standard, the Carolingian pound, from which 240 pfennigs were to be minted. These were the typical Carolingian pfennigs (in Latin also called denarii) that were to impact European coinage for centuries to come. Charlemagne tried out different coin types. The most far-spread were the CHRISTIANA RELIGIO pfennigs, so called after the inscription on the reverse. This type was adopted, with slight changes, by Charles' son and successor Louis the Pious (814-840), and later emerged also in the Frankish parts of northern Italy. It bore a simple cross on the obverse and on the reverse the façade of a temple that was undoubtedly standing for a church, although the image had been modeled after the temple on a Roman coin.