The Dunstable Swan Jewel is a gold and enamel brooch in the form of a swan made in England or France in about 1400 and now in the British Museum, where it is on display in Room 40. It was excavated in 1965 on the site of Dunstable Friary, and is presumed to have been intended as a livery badge given by an important figure to his supporters; the most likely candidate is probably the future Henry V of England, who was Prince of Wales from 1399.

The jewel is a rare medieval example of the then recently developed and fashionable white opaque enamel used in en ronde bosse to almost totally encase an underlying gold form. It is invariably compared to the white hart badges worn by King Richard II and the angels surrounding the Virgin Mary in the painted Wilton Diptych of around the same date, where the chains hang freely down.

The jewel is formed as a standing or walking mute swan "gorged" with a gold collar in the form of a royal crown with six fleur-de-lys tines. There is a gold chain terminating in a ring attached to the crown, and the swan has a pin and catch on its right side for fastening the brooch to clothes or a hat. The swan is 3.2 cm high and 2.5 cm wide, and the length of the chain is 8.2 cm. The swan's body is in white enamel, its eyes are of black enamel, which also once covered the legs and feet, where only traces now remain. Tiny fragments of pink or red enamel remain on the beak.

Coordinates: 51°53′10″N 0°31′16″W / 51.88603°N 0.52102°W / 51.88603; -0.52102

Dunstable /ˈdʌnstəbəl/ is a market town and civil parish located in Bedfordshire, England. It lies on the eastward tail spurs of the Chiltern Hills, 30 miles (50 kilometres) north of London. These geographical features form several steep chalk escarpments most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the north.

Etymology

In Roman times its name was Durocobrivis. There was a general assumption that the nominative form of the name had been Durocobrivae, so that is what appears on the map of 1944 illustrated below. But current thinking is that the form Durocobrivis, which occurs in the Antonine Itinerary, is a fossilised locative that was used all the time and Ordnance Survey now uses this form.

There are several theories concerning its modern name:

Dunstable (/ˈdʌnstəbəl/ DUN-stə-bəl) is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,179 at the 2010 census.

Etymology

Dunstable was named after its sister town Dunstable, England. There are several theories concerning its modern name. In one version, legend tells that the lawlessness of the time was personified in a thief called Dun. Wishing to capture Dun, the King stapled his ring to a post daring the robber to steal it. It was, and was subsequently traced to the house of the widow Dun. Her son, the robber, was taken and hanged to the final satisfaction that the new community bore his name. Another theory is that it comes from the Anglo-Saxon for "the boundary post of Duna". A third version is that the name is derived from Dunum, or Dun, a hill, and Staple, a marketplace.

History

Dunstable was first settled in 1656 and was officially incorporated in 1673. It is likely named after the town of Dunstable in Bedfordshire, England, home of Edward Tyng, the town's first settler. The original township of Dunstable, granted in 1661, consisted of two hundred square miles, including the Massachusetts towns of Dunstable, Pepperell, Townsend and Tyngsborough, the New Hampshire towns of Hudson, Nashua and Hollis, and parts of other towns as well. Increases in population leading to subsections becoming independent towns and the solidification of the northern boundary of Massachusetts in 1740 placed the northern part of Dunstable (present day Nashua) in New Hampshire, so the southern part remains the Dunstable of today.