Tudor bedchambers held more than sleepers. From king to commoner, the space around the bed became a staging ground for survival, superstition, and bodily necessity. Let’s dive into what sat on the average Tudor nightstand!
Holy Protection
Rosaries lay coiled beside pillows across England. Catholics clutched them through the night, even after Henry VIII’s break with Rome made such displays dangerous. Protestant households substituted prayer books, opened to psalms believed to ward off demons. Lady Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII’s mother, kept her Book of Hours within arm’s reach, its pages worn smooth from nightly handling.
The wealthy commissioned “bedside altars”: small carved crosses or religious medallions mounted on nightstands. These weren’t mere decoration. Tudor belief held that evil spirits struck during sleep’s vulnerability. A consecrated object nearby offered the only reliable defense.
Light Against Darkness
Candles burned through Tudor nights in wealthy households. Not from fear of darkness alone, but from practical terror. Chamber fires killed more efficiently than plague in timber-framed houses. A guttering candle warned of dangerous drafts or intruders.
Merchants’ wives kept multiple tapers ready. One beside the bed for midnight prayers or sudden illness. Another by the door to light a hasty escape. The poorest families made do with rush lights, reeds dipped in mutton fat that sputtered and smoked but burned for hours.
Charms and Superstitions
Amulets clustered on Tudor nightstands like botanical specimens. Coral beads prevented nightmares. Iron nails driven through rowan wood stopped witches from entering dreams. Pregnant women slept with eaglestones, hollow rocks containing smaller stones that rattled when shaken, ensuring safe delivery.
Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, owned a pomander filled with herbs and spices. She believed its scent prevented night-sweats and evil humors. Even after her execution for treason, similar pomanders appeared in royal inventories.
Crude Necessities
Chamber pots sat undisguised beside beds. No shame existed around this necessity. Henry VIII’s privy chamber accounts list ornate “close stools” – portable toilets disguised as chairs. Lesser nobles made do with pewter pots. Servants emptied them each morning, but the wealthy kept backup vessels nearby.
Living Companions
Small dogs shared Tudor beds regularly. Not for companionship, but as living hot water bottles and flea magnets. Spaniels drew vermin away from their owners. Cats earned their keep hunting rats that gnawed through bed hangings and scattered disease.
The strange contents of Tudor nightstands reveal a world where survival depended on preparation. Every object served death’s defeat for one more night.
Do you keep anything on your nightstand that is at all close to what our Medieval and Tudor friends kept on theirs? Leave a comment and let me know!
Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast,  the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.
She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).
