Ian WhiteLady Godiva (The Naked Truth)
Click Here
Lady Godiva was the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. Her name occurs in charters and the Domesday survey, though the spelling varies. The Old English name Godgifu or Godgyfu meant "gift of God"; Godiva was the Latinised version. Since the name was a popular one, there are contemporaries of the same name.[1][2]
Click Here
[3] Writing in the 12th century, Roger of Wendover credits Godiva as the persuasive force behind this act. In the 1050s, her name is coupled with that of her husband on a grant of land to the monastery of St Mary, Worcester and the endowment of the minster at Stow St Mary, Lincolnshire.[4][5] She and her husband are commemorated as benefactors of other monasteries at Leominster, Chester, Much Wenlock and Evesham.[6] She gave Coventry a number of works in precious metal made for the purpose by the famous goldsmith Mannig, and bequeathed a necklace valued at 100 marks of silver.[7] Another necklace went to Evesham, to be hung around the figure of the Virgin accompanying the life-size gold and silver rood she and her husband gave, and St Paul's Cathedral, London received a gold-fringed chasuble.[8] She and her husband were among the most munificent of the several large Anglo-Saxon donors of the last decades before the Conquest; the early Norman bishops made short work of their gifts, carrying them off to Normandy or melting them down for bullion.[9]
Her mark, di Ego Godiva Comitissa diu istud desideravi, appears on a charter purportedly given by Thorold of Bucknall to the Benedictine monastery of Spalding. However, this charter is considered spurious by many historians.[11] Even so it is possible that Thorold, who appears in the Domesday Book as sheriff of Lincolnshire, was her brother.
After Leofric's death in 1057, his widow lived on until sometime between the Norman Conquest of 1066 and 1086. She is mentioned in the Domesday survey as one of the few Anglo-Saxons and the only woman to remain a major landholder shortly after the conquest. By the time of this great survey in 1086, Godiva had died, but her former lands are listed, although now held by others.[12] Thus, Godiva apparently died between 1066 and 1086.[1]
The place where Godiva was buried has been a matter of debate. According to the Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham, or Evesham Chronicle, she was buried at the Church of the Blessed Trinity at Evesham, which is no longer standing. But, according to the authoritative account in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "There is no reason to doubt that she was buried with her husband at Coventry, despite the assertion of the Evesham chronicle that she lay in Holy Trinity, Evesham."[1]
Dugdale (1656) says that a window with representations of Leofric and Godiva was placed in Trinity Church, Coventry, about the time of Richard II.
Click Here
Reference: Click Here
Notes
1 a b c Ann Williams, ‘Godgifu (d. 1067?)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Oct 2006 accessed 18 April 2008
2 "Lady Godiva, the book, and Washingborough", Lincolnshire Past and Present, 12 (1993), pp. 9–10.
3 Anglo-Saxons.net, S 1226
4 Anglo-Saxons.net, S 1232
5 Anglo-Saxons.net, S 1478
6 The Chronicle of John of Worcester ed. and trans. R.R. Darlington, P. McGurk and J. Bray (Clarendon Press: Oxford 1995), pp.582–583
7 Dodwell, C. R.; Anglo-Saxon Art: A New Perspective, 1982, Manchester UP, ISBN 071900926X (US edn. Cornell, 1985), p. 25 & 66
8 Dodwell, 180 & 212
9 Dodwell, 220, 230 & passim
10 flickr.com
11 Anglo-Saxons.net, S 1230
12K.S.B.Keats-Rohan, Domesday People: A prosopography of persons occurring in English documents 1066–1166, vol. 1: Domesday (Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk 1999), p. 218
13Douglas, Alton (February 1991). Coventry: A Century of News. Coventry Evening Telegraph. p. 62. ISBN 0902464361.
14 Joan Cadogan Lancaster. Godiva of Coventry. With a chapter on the folk tradition of the story by H.R. Ellis Davidson. Coventry [Eng.] Coventry Corp., 1967. OCLC 1664951
15 K. L. French, ‘The legend of Lady Godiva’, Journal of Medieval History, 18 (1992), 3–19
16Lady Godiva, Historic-UK.com
17"The Historical Godiva", Octavia Randolph
18"Lady Godiva (Godgifu)", Flowers of History, University of California San Francisco
19 The Naked Truth, BBC News 2001
Click Here
.
Cooking with Feeling