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. The jewel was excav
The Dunstable Swan Jewel in the British Museum
The Wilton Diptych (c. 1395–99), showing Richard II and the angels wearing Richard's livery badge of the White Hart.
The white boar badge of Richard III as pendant to a Yorkist livery collar on the tomb monument of Sir Ralph Fitzherbert (died 1483) in Norbury, Derbyshire.
In post-classical history, an affinity was a group of men whom a lord gathered around himself in his service; it has been described by one modern historian as "the servants, retainers, and other follo
Dunstable Swan Jewel
…for a leading figure bearing his personal device, and given to others who would demonstrate by wearing them that they were in some way his employees, retainers, allies or supporters. They were especially common in England in the age of "bastard feudalism" from the mid-fourteenth century until about the end of…
Middleham Castle was the centre of the earl of Salisbury's Yorkshire affinity.
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster: In the later fourteenth century, his affinity was second only to that of the king.
Bayeux Tapestry scene 23 Harold sacramentum fecit Willelmo duci