Tudor closets created a new private history

The sixteenth-century Tudor closet emerged as an architectural innovation, offering a dedicated, lockable space for individuals to withdraw from the public sphere (Lucy Worsley from My Life in the Past). While grand houses featured purpose-built rooms, others improvised; the seventeenth-century London wood-turner Nehemiah Wallington utilized his garret as a private oratory for prayer and meditation (Lucy Worsley from My Life in the Past). These rooms served as repositories for personal treasures, particularly books; the York merchant’s wife Agnes Hull bequeathed a prayer book she used daily to her daughter, while Edward IV commissioned books dressed in velvet and silk with gilt clasps.

Beyond religious devotion, the closet facilitated the management of personal and secular affairs. Merchants performed their accounts in these secluded areas, and individuals wrote letters to absent family members within their confines. The space also functioned as a secure location for items kept away from public view, including illicit literature. This shift toward domestic privacy allowed for the curation of a private identity that remains accessible through the examination of such intimate, repurposed spaces.

“When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.”