Lady Godiva (; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English , was a late Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who is relatively well documented as the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and a patron of various churches and monasteries.
She is mainly remembered for a legend dating back to at least the 13th century, in which she rode naked – covered only by her long hair – through the streets of Coventry to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation that her husband, Leofric, 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.
Historical figure Godiva was the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. They had nine children; one son was Ælfgar.Montague-Smith Patrick W. Letters: Godiva's family tree. The Times, 25 January 1983 Godiva's name occurs in charters and the Domesday Book, though the spelling varies. The Old English name or meant "gift of God"; 'Godiva' was the name's Latinised form. Since the name was a popular one, there are contemporaries of the same name.Williams, Ann. 'Godgifu (d. 1067?)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, October 2006, accessed 18 April 2008
It is claimed that Godiva was born in Bucknall, Lincolnshire, around 995 AD; however several historians have declared the charter used as evidence for this to be spurious.The Earls of Mercia: Lordship and Power in Late Anglo-Saxon England
A woman named Godiva was recorded in the , a 12th-century history of Ely Abbey. If that "Godiva" were the same person as [the legendary figure] 'Lady Godiva', then she would have been 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 on the site of a nunnery destroyed by the Danes in 1016. Writing in the 13th century, Roger of Wendover credits Godiva as the persuasive force behind this act of generosity. 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. She and her husband are commemorated as benefactors of other monasteries at Leominster, Chester, Much Wenlock, and Evesham.The Chronicle of John of Worcester ed. and trans. R. R. Darlington, P. McGurk and J. Bray (Clarendon Press: Oxford 1995), pp. 582–583 She gave Coventry a number of works in precious metal by the goldsmith Mannig and bequeathed a necklace valued at 100 marks of silver.Dodwell, C. R. (1982) Anglo-Saxon Art: A New Perspective, Manchester UP, (US edn. Cornell, 1985), pp. 25 & 66 Another necklace went to Evesham, to be hung around the figure of the Virgin Mary accompanying the life-size gold and silver rood she and her husband had donated, and St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London received a gold-fringed chasuble.Dodwell, 180 & 212 Godiva 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.Dodwell, 220, 230 & passim Nevertheless, the memory of Godiva and Leofric survived during the Norman reign and in 1122 their names were commemorated in the mortuary roll of Vitalis of Savigny.
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 the Godiva of legend and her sister. The church there has a 20th-century stained glass window representing them.
Her signature, ("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. 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 her mid-fifties and died sometime between the Norman Conquest of 1066 and 1086. She is mentioned in the Domesday Book 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 and her former lands are listed as held by others.Keats-Rohan, Katherine Stephanie Benedicta, (1999) Domesday People: A prosopography of persons occurring in English documents 1066–1166, vol. 1: Domesday. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, p. 218.
The place where Godiva was buried has been a matter of debate. According to the , 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." Her husband was buried in the monastery of St Mary (later Coventry Cathedral) in 1057.
According to William of Malmesbury's Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Bishops), Godiva directed in her will that a "circlet of precious stones which she had threaded on a cord in order that by fingering them one after another she might count her prayers exactly, were to be placed on a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary,"" – William of Malmesbury: , 1125, Rolls Series 311. the oldest known textual reference to the use of a rosary-like string of prayer beads.
William Dugdale (1656) stated that a window with representations of Leofric and Godiva was placed in Holy Trinity Church, Coventry, about the time of Richard II.
Legend The legend of the nude ride is first recorded in the 13th century, in the 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 after Godiva's death, whereas her generous donations to the church receive various mentions.
According to the typical version of the story,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. 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 lower the taxes. At last, weary of her repeated requests, 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 what is the most famous instance of voyeurism.Lady Godiva , Historic-UK.com In most versions of the story, Tom is struck blind or dead for his transgression."Peeping Tom ", Encyclopedia Britannica; accessed 24 July 2023.
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.Marina Warner. When Godiva streaked and Tom peeped The Times, 10 July 1982 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."Lady Godiva (Godgifu)" , Flowers of History, University of California San Francisco This version is given in by Roger of Wendover (died 1236), a somewhat gullible collector of anecdotes. In a chronicle written in the 1560s, Richard Grafton claimed the version given in originated from a "lost chronicle" written between 1216 and 1235 by the Prior of the monastery of Coventry.
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. Grafton was an ardent Protestant and sanitized the earlier story.
The ballad "Leoffricus" in the Percy Folio (), pp. 473-. 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., 3:473-, vv. 53–60
Peeping Tom
The story of Peeping Tom, who alone among the townsfolk spied on the Lady Godiva's naked ride, probably did not originate in literature, but came about through popular lore in the locality of Coventry. Reference by 17th-century chroniclers has been claimed, but all the published accounts are 18th century or later.
According to an 1826 article submitted by someone well versed in local history identifying himself as 'W. Reader',, ib., "Show Fair at Coventry described". pp. 22– (with a sketch of Peeping Tom wooden statue) there was already a well-established tradition that there was a certain tailor who had spied on Lady Godiva, and that at the annual Trinity Great Fair (now called the Godiva Festival) featuring the Godiva processions "a grotesque figure called Peeping Tom" would be set on display, and it was a wooden statue carved from oak. The author has dated this effigy, based on the style of armour he is shown wearing, from the reign of Charles II (d. 1685). The same writer felt the legend had to be subsequent to William Dugdale (d. 1686) since he made no mention of it in his works that discussed Coventry at full length. (The story of the tailor and the use of a wooden effigy may be as old as the 17th century, but the effigy may not have always been called "Tom".)
W. Reader dates the first Godiva procession to 1677, but other sources date the first parade to 1678, and on that year a lad from the household of James Swinnerton enacted the role of Lady Godiva.Hartland, E. Sydney, (1890), Science of Fairy Tales, p. 75, taken down from the Annals of Coventry, ms. D:"31 May 1678, being the great Fair at Coventry.. and Ja. Swinnertons Son represented Lady Godiva"
The English Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) gives a meticulous account of the literary sources., "That one person disobeyed the order... first stated by Rapin (1732)... Pennant (Journey from Chester to London)(1782) calls him 'a certain taylor.' The name 'peeping Tom' occurs in the city accounts on 11 June 1773 when a new wig and fresh paint were supplied for his effigy." The historian Paul de Rapin (1732) reported the Coventry lore that Lady Godiva performed her ride while "commanding all Persons to keep within Doors and from their Windows, on pain of Death", but that one man could not refrain from looking and it "cost him his life"; Rapin further reported that the town commemorates this with a "Statue of a Man looking out of a Window."