Strategically arranging her long golden tresses, Lady Godiva rode through
Coventry, relieving herself of her clothes and inhibitions in order to
relieve her people of oppressive taxation. According to the traditional
story, Lady Godiva (c.1040-c.1080) had joking agreed to ride naked through
the crowded streets at high noon if her husband, Leofric, earl of Mercia
and lord of Coventry, and one of the most powerful nobles in England,
would lift burdensome taxes he had imposed on the townspeople. At least
Leofric thought she was joking. To the delight of his twice blessed
tenants, the earl had to keep his promise when his wife took him at his
word and kept hers. He removed the exaction almost as soon as she had
removed her clothes and displayed herself in the marketplace. The pioneer
Lady Godiva, a title humorously applied to any undraped woman, was
apparently the benefactress of several religious houses in the reign of
Edward the Confessor, and founded the Benedictine monastery at Coventry.
Her real name was Godgifu, her legendary ride, as famous and more
interesting than Paul Revere’s, first recorded in Flores historiarum by
Roger of Wendover (d.1237), who quoted from an earlier writer. From 1678
until 1836 the patroness of Coventry was honored by an annual procession
commemorating her bareback exhibition – usually held on May 31, weather
permitting. Godiva is the subject of many legends and poems, by Drayton,
Leigh Hunt and Tennyson among others, and since 1949 a bronze statue of
her by Sir William Reid Dick has stood in Coventry.