2nd August: Lady Godiva Day

10 things you didn't know about the woman who rode through Coventry naked.

1. Why did she do it? It was said that she continuously nagged her husband, Leofric, Earl of Mercia, about the oppressive taxes he charged his people. He was so sick of her going on about it that he said he would ease the taxation only if she rode naked through the streets.
2. Historical evidence is patchy as to whether the naked ride actually took place. If it did, it was in the 11th century. The legend dates to the 13th century, and is first recorded in the 13th century, in the Flores Historiarum and the adaptation of it by Roger of Wendover.
3. According to some accounts the tax Godiva was trying to ban was a tax on Horses.
4. Her name appears in various charters and surveys of the time, so it's likely she existed, although there are variations in the spelling; and Godiva, meaning "Gift of God" was a popular name back then.
5. Leofric was her second husband - she was a widow when she married him.
6. The couple were well known for generous gifts to the church. They founded a number of monasteries and she was said to have given one of her necklaces to a monastery at Evesham, for the statue of the Virgin Mary to wear about its neck.
7. She is thought to have had a sister called Wulviva and a brother called Thorold. She and Leofric had a son, Aelfgar.
8. Historians have come up with all sorts of theories suggesting that the naked ride didn't happen in quite the way it did in the legend. It may, they say, have been a pagan fertility ritual, or Lady Godiva rode through Coventry in her shift, or underwear, as penance, or possibly simply without her jewellery; although in the 13th century, the word "naked" was pretty unambiguous.
9. The term "peeping Tom" meaning a voyeur, originates from this tale. On the day of Lady Godiva's ride, the townspeople were ordered to stay indoors with their doors closed and windows shuttered. For the most part, they did as they were told, but there's always one - in this case a tailor called Tom, who bored a hole in his shutter and peeked out. Whether he was blinded by an act of God or as a punishment by the town police for disobeying the rules isn't known. There is some doubt whether this part of the legend is true, as the earliest accounts didn't mention him. Historians also point out that Thomas isn't an Anglo-Saxon name and so there was unlikely to be anyone called Thomas in the small town that Coventry was back then. An alternative theory is that the peeper was Lady Godiva's groom, whose name was Action.
10. In 1057, Godiva was widowed again. According to the Domesday Survey after the Norman conquest in 1066, she was one of the few Anglo-Saxons, and the only woman, to still be a major landowner. In the next major survey, her land was listed as owned by other people, meaning she must have died between 1066 and 1086.