The Dunstable Swan Jewel

Workers excavating the site of the former Dunstable Friary, a monastery that had been broken up and destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, found an exquisite jewel.  It was a brooch, complete with a chain and a pin and catch.  It could be worn attached to clothing either as a brooch or similar to a watch fob.  The jewel was a crowned swan made of gold, with white enamel for the intricate detailing of the feathers.  The best guess was that the little bird was meant to be worn as a livery badge by a highly-placed retainer of a nobleman during the Medieval era.

Many nobles used swans as an emblem.  Both Henry IV and his son Henry V used a swan as a personal badge during certain periods of their lives.  Other nobles such as members of the Bohun family.  Mary de Bohun was the wife of Henry of Bolingbroke, the future King Henry IV.  The Beauchamp family as Earls of Warwick also used the swan as a badge.  Had the little jewel belonged directly to one of the Henrys or to a nobleman, it would have been more elaborate still, such as being inset with jewels.  More likely, it was meant as a presentation piece to a high-ranking retainer who held a place in a noble's employ or as one of his adherents.

The jewel could either have been made on the Continent or by a foreign-born jeweler working in London around 1400.  Dunstable was a common site for tournaments at the period, meaning that both foreign knights and English nobles and knights would have been visiting the area.  Lancastrian armies camped there in 1458 and 1461.  Likely, the little jewel was dropped or left behind at some point and swept into a pile of rubble, where it remained until it was found by archaeologists excavating the Dunstable Friary.  It now rests in British Museum.