Abstract
This white paper explores the social, legal, and cultural practice of bed bequests in the Anglo-American world from the sixteenth century into the eighteenth century, focusing on England and colonial America. It places the bequest of William Shakespeare’s “second-best bed” to his wife in its proper historical and religious context, tracing the significance of bed-giving in Protestant—particularly Puritan—society. The study analyzes wills, inventories, legal customs, and religious ideologies to explain why such gifts were meaningful and widespread.

I. Introduction: A Curiosity in Testament
The bequest by William Shakespeare of his “second-best bed” to his wife Anne Hathaway has long puzzled readers of history and literature. Was this a slight, a sentimental gift, or a legal placeholder? While literary scholars have long debated the motive, recent historiographical approaches suggest this was part of a larger and culturally rich tradition within English and Anglo-American life, especially among Protestants. This paper surveys the shift of such bed bequests from late medieval England through the Reformation into colonial New England, considering religious norms, legal practices, and family customs.

II. Beds in Early Modern Material Culture

Beds in early modern England were more than items of furniture; they were among the most valuable possessions in a household. Constructed from oak or other hardwoods, often ornately carved, and equipped with canopies, featherbeds, and hangings, beds represented both economic status and intimate domestic life.

Inventories from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries reveal that many households had several beds, each associated with specific use: the best bed for guests and display, a marital bed for daily life, and servant or child beds. In a culture where hospitality was moral duty and marital fidelity was central to family and covenant life, beds bore layers of meaning.

III. Legal Traditions and Dower Practices

The English common law of dower entitled widows to a life interest in one-third of their husbands’ lands and the use of movable property sufficient for their station. However, wills often designated specific items for emotional and practical reasons. Bequeathing a bed—especially the second-best or marital bed—was not uncommon.

A survey of wills from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and lesser ecclesiastical courts shows the use of specific language: “my best bed,” “the bed I lie on,” “the trundle bed under the stairs.” These designations served not only to indicate status but to ensure clarity of inheritance.

IV. Protestant Reformation and the Transformation of Death Culture

The Protestant Reformation, with its rejection of purgatory and prayers for the dead, shifted emphasis away from intercessory bequests to churches and chantries and toward domestic and familial piety. Testaments became less about public religiosity and more about expressing personal values and family care.

In England and later in Puritan New England, this took the form of detailed inventories and bequests that emphasized household order. The “godly home” was a spiritual microcosm, and furnishing it—even posthumously—was a sign of righteousness and order.

V. Shakespeare’s Second-Best Bed in Context

Shakespeare’s will, dated 25 March 1616, includes the famous line: “Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture.” This line was interlined—added after the original draft—and has sparked intense debate.

However, recent scholarship supports a more sympathetic view. The best bed was often the guest bed; the second-best bed, the marital one. The bequest was likely a deeply personal gesture, reflecting the couple’s shared domestic life. Moreover, Anne Hathaway was entitled by law to dower rights, so the bequest did not reflect her full inheritance. It may have served to grant her personal use of something meaningful and not legally entangled.

VI. Puritan Views on Property and Bequests

Puritans, shaped by Calvinist theology, emphasized order, thrift, and family hierarchy. In their wills, they often used plain, direct language but were thorough in listing household goods. Beds appear frequently in Puritan wills from Massachusetts Bay Colony and other New England settlements.

Bernard Bailyn and others have documented this testamentary culture as one of moral instruction and legacy. Fathers bequeathed beds to sons and daughters not only for use but as signs of duty, lineage, and covenantal continuity. To give a bed was to establish a household; to pass on a bed was to confirm identity.

VII. Bed Bequests in Colonial America

Inventories in seventeenth and eighteenth-century America reveal continuity with English practices. Settlers brought with them both legal expectations and cultural norms. Beds retained their status as key items in the home.

For example, a 1679 will from Ipswich, Massachusetts, bequeaths “the second best bed and feather bolster to my loving wife, and the best to my eldest son.” The order and division reflect both practical concerns and social stratification. Unlike England, where urbanization allowed for anonymity, the intimate scale of colonial towns made material legacy a visible social marker.

VIII. Patterns and Symbolism in Bequest Language

Phrases like “my second-best bed,” “the bed I lie on,” and “my best featherbed” appear with regularity. Analysis shows patterns:

• The best bed was often associated with guests or heirs.
• The second-best or personal bed was more commonly given to a spouse.
• Beds were often given “with the furniture,” referring to curtains, hangings, and linens.
• Specificity was a safeguard against familial dispute.

The emotional symbolism of such gifts cannot be overlooked. Where Protestants eschewed icons, relics, and visual devotional practices, they sanctified the household and its memory through objects—beds, Bibles, tables.

IX. Decline of the Custom and Changing Domestic Culture

By the eighteenth century, as material culture expanded and inheritance customs changed, bed bequests became less central. Urbanization, mobility, and commercial production diversified the domestic sphere. The nuclear family replaced the household as the economic unit.

Nonetheless, the legacy of the practice remained in vernacular traditions and in the literature of the period. The sentimental value of a bed—the site of birth, intimacy, and death—remained strong, even as the item lost legal and economic centrality.

X. Conclusion: A Testament to Affection and Order

Bed bequests in the Anglo-American world, far from being trivial, were laden with meaning. They marked social hierarchy, affirmed legal responsibility, and conveyed affection and continuity in Protestant households. Shakespeare’s bequest of the second-best bed is emblematic of a tradition that values both memory and order, intimacy and law.

Rather than an insult or anomaly, such a gift sits squarely within the worldview of a culture that sought to organize life—and death—through godly order and tangible expressions of care.

Bibliography

• Bailyn, Bernard. The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955.
• Erickson, Amy Louise. Women and Property in Early Modern England. London: Routledge, 1995.
• Gittings, Clare. Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England. London: Croom Helm, 1984.
• Hindle, Steve. On the Parish? The Micro-Politics of Poor Relief in Rural England, c. 1550-1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
• National Archives. Wills and Probate Collection, 1500–1800.
• Shakespeare, William. The Will of William Shakespeare, 1616.
• Stannard, David. The Puritan Way of Death: A Study in Religion, Culture, and Social Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
• Wrightson, Keith. English Society, 1580–1680. London: Routledge, 2003.
• Edge Induced Cohesion Blog. “The Mysterious Case of the Second-Best Bed.”
• Dead Good Poets Society Blog. “Shakespeare’s Second-Best Bed and the Ritual of Bequest.”

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