Lady Godiva
Boudicca aside, Godiva is the most celebrated woman from Dark Ages Britain.
Godiva was very religious and had her jewellery converted into religious images and crosses. She was also known for her generous gifts to abbeys and churches, and with her husband endowed churches and religious houses in Leominster, Worcester, Evesham, Burton-on-Trent, Hereford, Stowe and Chester.In the 1040s they endowed a church in Coventry, possibly on the site of an earlier foundation destroyed by the Danes in 1016. On her deathbed, Godiva is said to have bequeathed her personal rosary to the church, which became a major centre of pilgrimage in the early Middle Ages.
Though considered a wise and devout figure, Leofric was implicated in the brutal pillage and destruction of Worcester in 1041, after the town defied a royal tax collector. And it is said that Godiva made her famous naked horse ride as a bargain with her husband to free the people of Coventry from the heavy tax burden he had imposed on them.
The story of the ride was first told in the 12th century, some 150 years after her death in 1067, while Peeping Tom is a later addition, first appearing in the tale in the 17th century. A modern version of the ride, the Godiva Procession, is recreated each year as part of the city’s Godiva Festival in June.
A striking statue of Godiva stands in the city’s central square, Broadgate. Sculpted by William Reid-Dick, it was unveiled in 1949 and is one of the few equestrian statues outside London to be listed (Grade II).
It is not known when or where she was born, but according to the Evesham Chronicle she married Leofric, Earl of Mercia, around 1035, becoming Godiva, Countess of Mercia. She was a wealthy woman in her own right and owned land in Coventry, Warwickshire, Ansty and Madeley.
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