Lady Godiva

Lady Godiva (/ɡəˈdaɪvə/; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English Godgifu, 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.

Today, 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.

[7] 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.

[8] 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.

According to William of Malmesbury's Gesta pontificum anglorum, 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,"[19] 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 Trinity Church, Coventry, about the time of Richard II.

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.

[26] 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.

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.

[32][d] 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.

[36] 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.

[38] Pennant noted that the person enacting Godiva in the procession was not fully naked of course, but wore "silk, closely fitted to her limbs", which had a colour resembling the skin's complexion.

[41] Her 'naked' ride has also been considered to provide an insight into how women used their sensuality and bodies to wield power in twelfth century England,[42] as well as how her protest formed Coventry's civic identity.

[43] Some suggest that the nudity myth originated in Puritan propaganda, designed to blacken the reputation of the notably pious Lady Godiva.

In addition the Gallery has collected many Victorian interpretations of the subject described by Marina Warner as "an oddly composed Landseer, a swooning Watts and a sumptuous Alfred Woolmer".

[45] Thomas Stevens, the 19th-century Coventry born weaver, famous for his innovation of the woven silk pictures known as stevengraphs,[46] sold an image of the Lady Godiva Procession amongst his designs.

[47] Another medium used to depict Godiva was linocut printing, with Haydn Reynolds Mackey's early 20th century work held in the collection of the Royal Academy of Arts.

[1] St Mary's Guildhall in Coventry houses a marble statue by William Calder Marshall of Lady Godiva, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1854.

These annual processions were enlivened by constant rumours, beforehand, that the girl playing the part of Lady Godiva would actually appear nude, like the original.

[53] From the mid-1980s a Coventry resident, Pru Porretta, has adopted a Lady Godiva role to promote community events and good works in the city.

In August 2007, the Godiva Sisters was performed in front of 900 delegates from 69 countries attending the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children Biennial Conference held at the University of Warwick.