ABSTRACT
The context of virtuous English woman's life was founded on the values of her Christian faith and its teachings, and on industrious confinement to whatever domestic sphere was appropriate to her station. From Reformation onward, and especially throughout the seventeenth century, Christian devotion in England became increasingly associated with private domestic space of the prayer closet, granting women equality with men in personal communion with the divine. Domestic psalm-performance provided a socially sanctioned and hitherto unexamined outlet for considerable musical and spiritual impulses of many sorts of women, from humble dairy-maids through the daughters of nobility. One should select one's psalm according to one's mood and sacred desire of one's heart, says Thomas Ravenscroft, choosing to repent one's sins, praise the majesty of God, give thanks, call for divine mercy, seek deliverance from temptation, ask redress for earthly tribulation, rest the soul, or merely exercise oneself "in the divine praises and precepts of the Lord" according to text and music.
