What’s in a Tudor Woman’s Bag? Court Essentials vs. Servant Survival

Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the Tudors

Heather Teysko

History

4.6 • 624 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2026

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you emptied the pockets of a Tudor woman in 1535, what would spill out? In this episode, we’re opening the drawstring purses, apron folds, and girdles of 16th-century women to see what they actually carried. Not the romanticized version. The practical one. From gold pomanders packed with ambergris and spices… To iron keys tied on fraying string… To bread wrapped in linen because there was no such thing as “grabbing something later.” We’ll look at: • The scented luxury of court life • The devotional habits that traveled at the waist • The money, keys, and tools women kept on their bodies • The stark differences between noblewomen, merchants’ wives, and servants • And what everyday objects quietly reveal about class, privacy, and control This is a “What’s In My Bag” video: Tudor edition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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1:02.7	If you stopped a woman in London in 1535 and asked to see what was in her bag,
1:08.1	she might look at you as though you had asked to see her pocket watch.
1:12.8	Most Tudor women did not carry bags in the modern sense. No leather shoulder straps, no clasped
1:19.0	purses swinging from their wrist, no hidden interior compartments stuffed with private things.
1:25.7	Instead, they wore their storage. Objects hung from the girdle at the
1:30.4	waist. Small purses were tied on with cords. Keys clinked against fabric. A devotional book might
1:37.2	dangle upside down, secured with a long strap so it could be easily lifted for reading. Scented containers, sewing tools, coins,
1:46.1	even small knives were part of the architecture of dress. And that is the first important shift we
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