THE LEGEND OF LADY GODIVA
The earliest known version of the story occurs in
the Chronicle of Roger of Wendover (fn. 1) (d. 1237), and
may be rendered as follows:
However, the countess Godiva, a devotee of the mother of
God, desiring to free the town of Coventry from the heavy
servitude of toll, often besought the earl, her husband,
with earnest prayers to free the town from the said
servitude and other troublesome exactions, by the guidance
of Jesus Christ and his mother. The earl upbraided her for
vainly seeking something so injurious to him and repeatedly
forbade her to approach him again on the subject. Nevertheless, in her feminine pertinacity she exasperated her
husband with her unceasing request and extorted from
him the following reply: 'Mount your horse naked', he
said, 'and ride through the market place of the town, from
one side right to the other, while the people are congregated, and when you return you shall claim what you
desire'. And the countess answered, 'And if I will do this,
will you give me your permission?' And he said, 'I will.'
Then the countess, beloved of God, accompanied by two
soldiers, as it is said, mounting her horse naked, loosed
her hair from its bands, so veiling the whole of her body,
and thus passing through the market place she was seen
by nobody (a nemine visa) except for her very white legs.
Her journey completed, she returned rejoicing to her
husband, and, as he wondered at the deed, she demanded
of him what she had asked. Then Earl Leofric freed the
town of Coventry and its inhabitants from the said
servitude, confirming what he had done with a charter.
Except for the detail of the two accompanying
soldiers, Wendover's Chronicle was copied almost
verbatim by Matthew Paris (d. 1259) in his Chronica (fn. 2)
and in the Flores Historiarum, (fn. 3) and by John of
Tinmouth (c. 1336) and John of Brompton (fn. 4) (c. 1436).
Another group of chroniclers, Ranulf Higden (d.
1364), Knighton (fl. 1363), and John Trevisa (fn. 5) (1387),
while giving basically the same account, add a few
details: that the ride took place in the morning 'through
the midst of the city', and that its purpose was the
freeing of the city from all tolls except that on horses.
A slightly different account is given in Grafton's
Chronicle (fn. 6) (1569). Citing 'Gaufride' as his authority,
Grafton says that before she set out on her ride
Godiva explained her purpose to the city officials,
who thereupon ordered all inhabitants to stay in
their houses, shut their windows, and not look into
the streets. Then with 'her gentlewoman to wait
upon her', she galloped through the town unseen.
'Gaufride', who cannot be identified with any of
the known Geoffries of that period - Geoffrey of
Monmouth, Geoffrey Gaimar, Geoffrey of Swynbroke, or Geoffrey Malaterra (fn. 7) - may have been
Geoffrey, prior of Coventry (1216-35) and author
of a chronicle and register which are no longer
extant. (fn. 8) This version of the story, therefore, which
provides a framework for the Peeping Tom episode,
may have received written form as early as the first
half of the 13th century.
Camden (fn. 9) and Dugdale (fn. 10) simply repeated the
version of Wendover and Knighton, but during the
17th century, the alternative account began to gain
ground. Häfele (fn. 11) quotes a 17th-century ballad which
is virtually Grafton in verse. A manuscript written
temp. Charles II (fn. 12) repeats the countess's (fn. 13) injunction
to the inhabitants to stay indoors and adds that
someone 'let down a window' whereupon the horse
neighed, and that this was the reason for the exception of horses from the general exemption from toll.
This manuscript was copied from an earlier,
probably 16th-century one, and E. S. Hartland (fn. 14)
suggests that the expression 'let down a window'
suggests an even earlier period, before glass for
windows had come generally into use. The Revd.
Rowland Davies, visiting Coventry in 1690, noted
an 'image of an old man looking out of the window'
at the end of Broadgate, that had been erected 'in
memory of a fellow who peeped out there when the
queen rode naked through the town'. (fn. 15) De Rapin Thoyras, writing in 1724, also noted the statue, and
added that the man who was 'trop curieux', was
put to death. (fn. 16) The earliest evidence for the name
'Peeping Tom' occurs in the city annals under
the year 1773 (fn. 17) and Thomas Pennant, writing in
1782, calls him a tailor. (fn. 18) Thomas Seward, Canon
of Lichfield (d. 1790), describes the peeper as 'one
Actaeon, a groom of the countess', whose horse,
recognising the groom, neighed. (fn. 19)
The written accounts of the Godiva story form
only part of the tradition. Most of the oral tradition
has been lost but some of it, in the form of ballads,
was preserved. (fn. 20) The earliest non-literary evidence
is a late-14th-century window in Holy Trinity
Church representing Leofric and Godiva and
originally bearing the inscription:
I Luriche for the love of thee
Doe make Coventre tol-free (fn. 21)
The glass, which was in a south window, was
removed in 1775, but parts of it were put in another
window in 1779. (fn. 22) Fragments of the glass are still
(1964) to be found in the church. (fn. 23) The original
window portrayed Leofric as a middle-aged man
with short hair and bushy beard, and Godiva
opposite, a coronet on her golden hair, holding out
her hands in entreaty. Above Leofric and Godiva was
a small figure of a woman in a yellow dress, seated
on a white horse and carrying a branch in her left
hand. (fn. 24) After the Reformation Godiva came to
replace to some extent the religious images of
Catholicism and it was probably no coincidence that
a picture of Godiva was painted in 1586 and hung in
St. Mary's Hall about the same time as the plays
were being suppressed. (fn. 25)
Godiva also became a symbol of civic freedom.
As early as 1495 verses found on St. Michael's door
denounced the recent tolls on wool and cloth and
the exaction of fees from apprentices:
This cite should be free & nowe is bonde.
Dame good Eve made it free (fn. 26)
The resurgence of interest in the legend in the late
17th century may have been connected with the
struggle for the charters. The 1586 portrait was
copied in 1681 by 'Mr. Ellis the limner' (fn. 27) and the first
recorded Godiva procession took place in 1678, when
'James Swinnerton's son represented Lady Godiva'
and a medal was struck in commemoration. (fn. 28) It is
highly probable that the Peeping Tom statue
mentioned by 18th-century writers can be identified
with the figure put up in Greyfriars Lane by Alderman Owen in 1678. (fn. 29) The figure, carved from a
single block of wood, represents a man in the armour
'of the time of Henry VII', and was probably a St.
George. But it was painted and dressed in the
clothes and wig of the time of Charles II, a fact
which suggests that it was identified with Peeping
Tom and carried in the Godiva procession since
c. 1678. (fn. 30) The Godiva procession was an important
part of the Great Show Fair throughout the 18th
and first half of the 19th centuries. The details of the
procession varied, but it usually included the mayor
and corporation, the city companies, and a girl clad
in a close-fitting, flesh-coloured costume to represent
Lady Godiva. The character of the procession and
accompanying festivities changed during the 19th
century: the mayor and corporation ceased to take
part after the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835
and the day of the procession was changed from
Friday to Monday, while other historical personages
connected with Coventry were introduced. During
the 19th century, too, there were growing suspicions
of the original purpose of the procession, which
began to affront the prudery of upright citizens and
the pious Christianity of Coventry Roman Catholics
who wanted to replace it with a Marian procession,
especially after a fiasco in 1842 when the actress
impersonating Lady Godiva had celebrated too
exuberantly and had to be held on to her horse.
By 1900 the procession had ceased to be part of
a genuine tradition and during the present century
it has been held principally to mark special occasions,
like the coronation of Edward VII in 1902, of
George V in 1911, the peace celebrations in 1919,
the Festival of Britain in 1951, and the Cathedral
Festival in 1962. (fn. 31) Nevertheless Lady Godiva
continues to provide a subject for literature and
art, (fn. 32) one of the latest examples being the bronze
equestrian statue by Sir William Reid Dick which was
officially unveiled in the centre of Broadgate in 1949. (fn. 33)
It has long been accepted that the legend is very
unlikely to be literally true. Godiva (fn. 34) was a historic
person, the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, mother
of Ælfgar, Earl of East Anglia, and grandmother of
Edwin and Morcar and of Aldgyth, wife of Gruffyd,
Prince of Wales, and, after his death, of King
Harold. She was a considerable landowner, probably
in her own right, and a patron of several religious
houses, including the Benedictine abbey at Coventry.
She seems to have been a woman of conventional
piety, which mainly took the form of benefactions to
monasteries and a typically Anglo-Saxon devotion
to the Virgin. This is attested by contemporary deeds
and 12th-century chroniclers: Florence of Worcester
(d. 1118), Symeon of Durham (fl. 1130), William of
Malmesbury (d. 1143), Henry of Huntingdon (fl.
1154), Roger of Hoveden (fl. 1204), and Walter of Coventry (fl. 1217). (fn. 35) But there is no written evidence of
the ride until Roger of Wendover (d. 1237) or possibly Geoffrey, Prior of Coventry from 1216 to 1235.
Even if Roger of Wendover and Geoffrey (fn. 36) used
earlier writers, the story as they tell it presupposes
a town, a developed community with a market-place
and a charter of liberties. This, while true of 13th-or even 12th-century Coventry, was not an accurate
description of Coventry in the mid 11th century. It
has been calculated (fn. 37) that in 1086 Coventry was
mainly an agricultural community of about 350 serfs
living in single-story hovels, tolls being the least of
their burdens. Furthermore, similar traditions at
St. Briavels (Glos.), Dunster (Som.), Otmoor
(Oxon.), and the Tichborne Crawls (Hants.), (fn. 38)
and the close analogy with folklore and rites in
Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, and even India, (fn. 39)
suggests that the origin of the Godiva story and
procession lies in pagan myth and ritual rather than
in an act by the historic Countess Godiva.
Elements in the Godiva legend and other traditions relating to Coventry provide clues as to the
nature of the original cult although any reconstruction must, in the absence of positive proof, remain
conjectural. The naked woman with long hair, riding
in a springtime procession, is the one constant factor
in all variations of the legend and represents a
goddess of fertility. (fn. 40) The tabu element of the
Peeping Tom story may be a genuine part of the
original myth, recalling similar penalties for those
who intruded on the forbidden rites of other fertility
goddesses - Artemis in Greece, the Bona Dea in
Rome, Nerthus or Hertha in Germany and rainmaking ceremonies in India. (fn. 41) Like the intruder in
other tabu stories, (fn. 42) however, Peeping Tom may
have played a more positive part in the ritual, as the
priest-king, the consort of the goddess who was
sacrificed to ensure the fertility of the crops and
herds, and well-being of the community. (fn. 43) Other
men, often strangers or criminals, and finally
animals, came to be substituted for the sacrificial
priest-king, and this stage may be represented in the
Coventry Hock Play. In many places at Hocktide -
the Monday and Tuesday following the second
Sunday after Easter - women caught and bound or
'hocked' any man they encountered and exacted a
forfeit from him. At Coventry this simple custom
seems to have developed in the 15th century into a
play, said to commemorate the defeat of the Danes
by Ethelred in 1002 or the death of Hardicanute and
the end of the Danish regime. The play comprised a
battle between two parties on hobby-horses, ending
with the defeat of the Danes and the English women
leading them captive. It is generally accepted (fn. 44) that
this was an aetiological explanation for what was a
seasonal rite involving the capture and death of the
sacrificial victim. The 'hocking' with ropes may
represent, not only the capture, but the actual death
by hanging which was a common feature in northern
religion, (fn. 45) while the 'battle' between the two sides
probably derives from the struggle between rival
communities for the body of the fertilizing victim. (fn. 46)
The final stage was the substitution of an animal
for the human male victim, and this is probably
represented in Coventry by the horse, an important
part of the Godiva legend, which in some accounts
is specifically related to Peeping Tom. The horse,
particularly the white horse, was the main sacrificial
animal in northern mythology, used in divination
and especially associated with the fertility god,
Freyr. (fn. 47) In Coventry, from the 13th century, and
probably earlier, horses were in a special category
in relation to tolls. In 1280 the whole town was said
to be free from toll with the exception of horse toll,
from which the burgesses were exempt but which
they exacted from their under-tenants. (fn. 48) In 1355,
when the prior gave up control of his Friday market,
he specifically reserved the right to take toll for
horses. (fn. 49) There is no mention of horse toll in the
grants of fairs to the prior and earl, and it may have
originated in the Friday (fn. 50) market, for which no
charter exists, but which was certainly in existence
by 1161-75. (fn. 51) There is evidence, however, in the
form of an early, but undated, conveyance, (fn. 52) to
suggest that horse toll may have been connected
with the conditions of burgage tenure rather than
with the grant of markets or fairs, and therefore to
have originated in the 12th-century charters of the
earls of Chester. (fn. 53) The explanation given by some
of the chroniclers that the exception of horse toll
was connected with the neighing of Godiva's horse
when it noticed Peeping Tom, was probably a later
aetiological rationalization, but it may well be
correct in connecting it with the legend. As in the
similar tradition at St. Briavels, (fn. 54) the toll may
originally have represented payment made on the
occasion of an annual festival, in the case of Coventry,
to provide the sacrificial horse.
Besides its obviously phallic qualities, (fn. 55) the horse
was also a symbol of death, (fn. 56) and the cult at
Coventry was probably a typical one of fertility and
death, winter and spring. In the two earliest accounts
of the Godiva ride, Godiva did not make her journey
alone. According to Geoffrey, she was accompanied
by a lady-in-waiting, while Roger of Wendover
records the presence of two soldiers. In the earliest
detailed accounts of the Godiva procession - those
of the 18th and early 19th centuries - she was
accompanied, apart from the civic dignitaries, by
St. George, men in black armour, or by a 'black
Godiva'. E. S. Hartland (fn. 57) was the first to draw
attention to an 18th-century procession featuring
a white Godiva on a white horse and a black
Godiva on a black horse at Southam, which
had belonged to Earl Leofric and then to Coventry
Priory. F. Bliss Burbidge, (fn. 58) who made further
researches into the Southam procession, concluded
that it was only a late-18th-century imitation of the
nationally famous Coventry procession. This may
well have been true, but his second conclusion, that
'a white lady on a white horse would naturally
suggest the obverse' is much less plausible. Burbidge
himself concluded that an illumination in the
Coventry smiths' company book, showing a white
lady on a white horse and a black lady on a black
elephant, dated from 1707, nearly a century before
the recorded Southam procession.
In the 1826 Coventry procession, (fn. 59) the black figure
was a man in black armour, said to represent St.
George. There may be a relatively late historical
reason to account for the black figures - the 'St.
George' representing the Black Prince, and the
elephant, the arms of the city. But the presence of
other black figures in the 1826 procession (fn. 60) and of
black 'Godivas' in earlier processions recalls the
almost universal 'black' figures in mummers' plays,
sword-dances and legend generally. These have been
explained as relics of a heat-charm in which faces
were blackened by the smoke of a fire lit in semblance
of the sun. (fn. 61) Faces may well have been blackened by
smoke or charcoal from a fire, but the fire is more
likely to have been that of a funeral pyre (fn. 62) and the
symbol, that of death. The black Godiva was thus
the death aspect of the life and death earth goddess.
The Erinnys, Demeter, and Diana all had black cult
statues devoted to the death aspect of their personality, (fn. 63) while numerous black Madonnas witness to
the survival of worship long after the original object
of the cult was forgotten. In the north death and
fertility, winter and summer, were sometimes united
in one goddess such as Freyja or appeared as the
multiple disir or as Holda and Hel, twin aspects of
the same deity. (fn. 64) The latter may well have featured
in the Coventry cult, being reflected, not only in the
black Godiva, but in the medieval Coventry plays,
which featured a doomsday involving white, saved
souls, and black, damned ones, presided over by the
'Mother of Death'. (fn. 65) The latter, which has no
ancestry in Christian mythology, may well be
identified with Hel, queen of the northern world of
death. (fn. 66)
The presence of St. George in the Godiva procession may have survived from the memory of a god or
hero, representative of life and enemy of evil and
death. The figure of St. George, patron saint of
horses, cattle, and vegetation, who appears as the
main figure in mummers' plays, and in whose name
'ridings' similar to the Godiva procession were held,
is generally agreed to be a thinly disguised survival
of the priest-king of the spring festival. In the
mummers' plays St. George is the victim, slain and
resurrected. In more sophisticated romance he is the
positive champion of good, slaying the dragon,
symbol of darkness and death. (fn. 67) While the cult of
St. George was widespread in the Middle Ages,
there was a special connexion with Coventry, the
scene, according to the 16th-century author of the
Seven Champions of Christendom, (fn. 68) of George's
birth and burial. Another figure of the same type,
Guy of Warwick, slayer of dragons and giants, (fn. 69) was
also associated with Coventry (fn. 70) where a large bone,
said to have come from a gigantic boar killed by
him at Swanswell (Swineswell), (fn. 71) was long preserved
in St. George's Chapel at Gosford Gate. (fn. 72)
Professor Robert Graves (fn. 73) suggests that some of
the features in the Godiva cult may be medieval,
representing an Arabic cult that reached England
via France and Spain at the time of the crusades or a
little later. Black figures, especially linked with the
dragon-slaying hero, belonged to an Arabic wisdom
cult. He also suggests that the 'Dianic' cult, prevalent
in the 12th and 13th centuries, was taken up about
the same time. There is not necessarily a discrepancy here. The cult of the medieval 'Diana' was
so similar to that of northern goddesses like Holda
that it was frequently confused with them. The
black figures may have been a later addition to the
tradition, perhaps brought in by some of the Black
Prince's retainers who had campaigned with him in
Gascony and Spain. The Arabic cult may well have
influenced the 13th-century romances of St. George
and Guy of Warwick, in which Saracens and Moors
as well as giants and dragons figure prominently.
The local tradition of a death and fertility cult would
have attracted stories and embellishments from
later, more remote sources.
Coventry, the home of an isolated community in
the wooded and well-watered Forest of Arden, was
ideally situated for the survival of a pagan cult
centuries after the country had been nominally
Christianised. (fn. 74) It is now generally accepted that the
name 'Coventry' is derived from Cofa's Tree, and,
while this may have been merely a boundary-mark
named after the chief of the community, it may have
had an earlier significance as a sacred tree, (fn. 75) which,
growing close to a well or pool - perhaps Swanswell,
St. Osburg's Pool, or Hobb's Hole (fn. 76) - frequently
became the site of a cult. (fn. 77) The cult seems to have
been the common one of a life and death fertility
goddess, perhaps called Cofa, or Freyja or Frija (the
Lady) or Goda (the good). (fn. 78) A male consort was
probably associated with her in myth and ritual and
horses and possibly swine sacrificed to her. The cult,
which was probably a northern one, basically AngloSaxon but strengthened by a fresh infusion of late
paganism at the Danish invasion, (fn. 79) probably survived
the foundation of St. Osburg's nunnery in the 10th
century and of the Benedictine abbey in 1043, in the
form of a spring procession with accompanying
orgiastic and sacrificial rites.
The transference of veneration from a pagan
goddess to the pious Countess Godiva, probably took
place during the 12th century, at the initiative of the
priory. Häfele (fn. 80) quotes suggestions that a description
of Godiva's generosity to Coventry Abbey, in which
she 'stripped herself' (denudata) of her worldly
possessions, may have been misunderstood. A
further confusion may have arisen between the abbey
(convent') and the town (Covent'), a possibility which
is strengthened by the form Conventrensis in which
Coventry appears in some of the earliest chronicle
accounts of the legend. (fn. 81) A local monk, knowing of
the existence of a local festival and procession,
perhaps in honour of Goda, reading that Godiva
'stripped herself' in her generosity to Convent,
may have completed the story which received
written form in the chronicles of Geoffrey and
Roger of Wendover. It is even more likely that the
legend was a deliberate attempt by the monks to
Christianise the cult. At first they may have tried
to forbid the Christian population from attending
the procession, a prohibition which was reflected
in the Peeping Tom tradition. But the most successful policy was that usually adopted by the Church
in dealing with pagan customs which were too strong
to be eradicated, namely to transfer the veneration
to a Christian figure, usually a saint, and leave the
custom while omitting its less desirable details. (fn. 82)
The springtime procession may well have had a
continuous history throughout the Middle Ages. If
the legend was manufactured during the 12th
century when the monks were forging their charters,
the procession probably became attached to the
Great Show Fair during the 13th or 14th centuries.
The procession may have first become attached to
the prior's fair, which from 1239 was held on St.
George's day. (fn. 83) Later, when the Earl's Half became
more important than the Prior's Half, the procession
could have been transferred to the earl's fair, held
in the octave of Trinity. Miss Dormer Harris quotes
evidence from the 15th, and 16th centuries to show
that some kind of procession called a 'riding'
accompanied the opening of the Show Fair, (fn. 84) and
the figure in Holy Trinity window of a woman in a
yellow dress holding a branch and riding on a
horse, (fn. 85) may represent the medieval Godiva procession. In view of the well-attested connexion of this
figure with the larger figures of Leofric and Godiva,
Miss Dormer Harris's contention that the figure on
the horse represents the sign for Taurus (fn. 86) may be
rejected, although the mistake itself is significant.
The sign for Taurus, April, was itself a representation of the spring procession in honour of the
fertility goddess Venus or Eostre. (fn. 87)
The Godiva procession probably suffered the
same fate as the Hock play, described in 1575 as
'lately laid down' owing to the 'zeal of certain
preachers'. (fn. 88) The festivities were revived after the
Restoration. Rawdon refers c. 1665 to an annual
'great feasting' which seems to have been connected
with Lady Godiva, (fn. 89) although it may not have been
until 1678 that the Godiva procession was revived.
Few, if any, would have then been alive who had
themselves witnessed the old procession. This may
account for the fact that the St. George statue,
correctly associated by tradition with the Godiva
story, was transformed into the 17th-century figure
of Tom the Tailor.