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Godiva, Countess of Mercia (/ɡəˈdaɪvə/; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English Godgifu, was an English noblewoman who, according to a legend dating at least to the 13th century, rode naked - covered only in her long hair - through the streets of Coventry to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation that her husband imposed on his tenants. The name "Peeping Tom" for a voyeur originates from later versions of this legend in which a man named Thomas watched her ride and was struck blind or dead. Godiva was the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. They had one known son, Aelfgar.[2][3][4][5][6] Godiva's name occurs in charters and the Domesday survey, though the spelling varies. The Old English name Godgifu or Godgyfu meant "gift of God"; Godiva was the Latinised form. Since the name was a popular one, there are contemporaries of the same name.[6][7] If she is the same Godiva who appears in the history of Ely Abbey, the Liber Eliensis, written at the end of the 12th century, then she was a widow when Leofric married her. Both Leofric and Godiva were generous benefactors to religious houses. In 1043 Leofric founded and endowed a Benedictine monastery at Coventry[8] on the site of a nunnery destroyed by the Danes in 1016. Writing in the 12th century, Roger of Wendover credits Godiva as the persuasive force behind this act. In the 1050s, her name is coupled with that of her husband on a grant of land to the monastery of St. Mary, Worcester and the endowment of the minster at Stow St Mary, Lincolnshire.[9][10][11] She and her husband are commemorated as benefactors of other monasteries at Leominster, Chester, Much Wenlock, and Evesham.[12] She gave Coventry a number of works in precious metal by the famous goldsmith Mannig and bequeathed a necklace valued at 100 marks of silver.[13] Another necklace went to Evesham, to be hung around the figure of the Virgin accompanying the life-size gold and silver rood she and her husband gave, and St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London received a gold-fringed chasuble.[14] She and her husband were among the most munificent of the several large Anglo-Saxon donors of the last decades before the Norman Conquest; the early Norman bishops made short work of their gifts, carrying them off to Normandy or melting them down for bullion.[15] The manor of Woolhope in Herefordshire, along with four others, was given to the cathedral at Hereford before the Norman Conquest by the benefactresses Wulviva and Godiva - usually held to be this Godiva and her sister. The church there has a 20th-century stained glass window representing them.[16] Her signature, Ego Godiva Comitissa diu istud desideravi [I, The Countess Godiva, have desired this for a long time], appears on a charter purportedly given by Thorold of Bucknall to the Benedictine monastery of Spalding. However, this charter is considered spurious by many historians.[17] Even so, it is possible that Thorold, who appears in the Domesday Book as sheriff of Lincolnshire, was her brother. After Leofric's death in 1057, his widow lived on until sometime between the Norman Conquest of 1066 and 1086. She is mentioned in the Domesday survey as one of the few Anglo-Saxons and the only woman to remain a major landholder shortly after the conquest. By the time of this great survey in 1086, Godiva had died, but her former lands are listed, although now held by others.[18] Thus, Godiva apparently died between 1066 and 1086.[7] The place where Godiva was buried has been a matter of debate. According to the Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham, or Evesham Chronicle, she was buried at the Church of the Blessed Trinity at Evesham, which is no longer standing. According to the account in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "There is no reason to doubt that she was buried with her husband at Coventry, despite the assertion of the Evesham chronicle that she lay in Holy Trinity, Evesham."[7] William Dugdale (1656) says that a window with representations of Leofric and Godiva was placed in Trinity Church, Coventry, about the time of Richard II.[19] Legend The legend of the nude ride is first recorded in the 13th century, in the Flores Historiarum and the adaptation of it by Roger of Wendover. Despite its considerable age, it is not regarded as plausible by modern historians, nor is it mentioned in the two centuries intervening between Godiva's death and its first appearance, while her generous donations to the church receive various mentions. According to the typical version of the story,[20][21] Lady Godiva took pity on the people of Coventry, who were suffering grievously under her husband's oppressive taxation. Lady Godiva appealed again and again to her husband, who obstinately refused to remit the tolls. At last, weary of her entreaties, he said he would grant her request if she would strip naked and ride on a horse through the streets of the town. Lady Godiva took him at his word, and after issuing a proclamation that all persons should stay indoors and shut their windows, she rode through the town, clothed only in her long hair. Just one person in the town, a tailor ever afterwards known as Peeping Tom, disobeyed her proclamation in one of the most famous instances of voyeurism.[22] Some historians have discerned elements of pagan fertility rituals in the Godiva story, whereby a young "May Queen" was led to the sacred Cofa's tree, perhaps to celebrate the renewal of spring.[23] The oldest form of the legend has Godiva passing through Coventry market from one end to the other while the people were assembled, attended only by two knights.[24] This version is given in Flores Historiarum by Roger of Wendover (died 1236), a somewhat gullible collector of anecdotes, who quoted from unnamed earlier writers. Other attempts to find a more plausible rationale for the legend include one based on the custom at the time for penitents to make a public procession in their shift, a sleeveless white garment similar to a slip today and one which was certainly considered "underwear". Thus Godiva might have actually travelled through town as a penitent, in her shift. Godiva's story could have passed into folk history to be recorded in a romanticised version. Another theory has it that Lady Godiva's "nakedness" might refer to her riding through the streets stripped of her jewellery, the trademark of her upper class rank. However, these attempts to reconcile known facts with legend are both weak; in the era of the earliest accounts, the word "naked" is only known to mean "without any clothing whatsoever".[25] A modified version of the story was given by printer Richard Grafton, later elected MP for Coventry. According to his Chronicle of England (1569), "Leofricus" had already exempted the people of Coventry from "any maner of Tolle, Except onely of Horses", so that Godiva ("Godina" in text) had agreed to the naked ride just to win relief for this horse tax. And as a condition, she required the officials of Coventry to forbid the populace "upon a great pain" from watching her, and to shut themselves in and shutter all windows on the day of her ride.[26] Grafton was an ardent Protestant and sanitized the earlier story.[23] The ballad "Leoffricus" in the Percy Folio (ca. 1650)[27][28] conforms to Grafton's version, saying that Lady Godiva performed her ride to remove the customs paid on horses, and that the town's officers ordered the townsfolk to "shutt their dore, & clap their windowes downe," and remain indoors on the day of her ride.[29][30] References Douglas, Alton; Moore, Dennis; Douglas, Jo (February 1991). Coventry: A Century of News. Coventry Evening Telegraph. p. 62. ISBN 0-902464-36-1. Patrick W. Montague-Smith Letters: Godiva's family tree The Times, 25 January 1983 Samuel Timmins, A History of Warwickshire 1889 F. Smith ` Warwickshire Delineated' 1820 Adam Fox 'Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500-1700' 2000 P.R. Cross 'Lordship, Knighthood and Locality: A Study in English Society, C. 1180-1280' 1991 Ann Williams, ‘Godgifu (d. 1067?)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, October 2006 accessed 18 April 2008 (subscription or UK public library membership required) "Anglo-Saxons.net, S 1226". Anglo-saxons.net. 13 April 1981. Retrieved 30 January 2014. "Anglo-Saxons.net, S 1232". Anglo-saxons.net. Retrieved 30 January 2014. "Anglo-Saxons.net, S 1478". Anglo-saxons.net. Retrieved 30 January 2014. In the Stow charter, she is called "Godgife" (Thorpe, Benjamin (1865). Diplomatarium anglicum aevi saxonici: A collection of English charters. 1. London: MacMillan. p. 320.) The Chronicle of John of Worcester ed. and trans. R.R. Darlington, P. McGurk and J. Bray (Clarendon Press: Oxford 1995), pp.582-583 Dodwell, C. R.; Anglo-Saxon Art: A New Perspective, 1982, Manchester UP, ISBN 0-7190-0926-X (US edn. Cornell, 1985), pp. 25 & 66 Dodwell, 180 & 212 Dodwell, 220, 230 & passim "flickr.com". flickr.com. 11 August 2007. Retrieved 30 January 2014. "Anglo-Saxons.net, S 1230". Anglo-saxons.net. Retrieved 30 January 2014. K.S.B.Keats-Rohan, Domesday People: A prosopography of persons occurring in English documents 1066-1166, vol. 1: Domesday (Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk 1999), p. 218 Dugdale, William (1656). Antiquities of Warwickshire. London. Joan Cadogan Lancaster. Godiva of Coventry. With a chapter on the folk tradition of the story by H.R. Ellis Davidson. Coventry [Eng.] Coventry Corp., 1967. OCLC 1664951 French KL (1992). "The legend of Lady Godiva". Journal of Medieval History. 18: 3-19. doi:10.1016/0304-4181(92)90015-q. Lady Godiva, Historic-UK.com Marina Warner. When Godiva streaked and Tom peeped The Times, 10 July 1982 "Lady Godiva (Godgifu)" Archived 22 June 2006 at the Wayback Machine., Flowers of History, University of California San Francisco "The Naked Truth". BBC News. 24 August 2001. Grafton 1809, volume 1, p.148. Grafton, Richard (1809). Grafton's chronicle, or history of England: to which is added his table of the bailiffs, sheriffs and mayors of the city of London from the year 1189, to 1558, inclusive : in two volumes. 1. London: P. Johnson. p. 148. Hales, John W.; Furnivall, Frederick J., eds. (1868), "Leoffricus", Bishop Percy's folio manuscript: Ballads and romances, London: Trübner, 3, pp. 477-, pp.473- A variant of this ballad is in Collection of Old Ballads (1723-25) Hales & Furnivall 1868, 3:473-, vv. 53-60 DNB 1890 thus was inaccurate in stating that "This ballad first mention the order..", since Grafton had printed it earlier. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William B.
