CHAPTER I

_Leofric and Godiva_

It was ever the boast of Coventry men that their city was of "much fame and antiquity,"[4] being "remembered," so John Throgmorton, the recorder, assured Queen Elizabeth, "by Polydore Vergil to be of ... small account in the time of King Arviragus (which was forty-four years after our Saviour) in the Emperor Claudius' time."[5] And Shakespeare's contemporary, Michael Drayton, had a pretty fancy of his own concerning the place,[6] whereby its antiquity is made manifest. He tells us how, when Coventry was but "a poor thatched village," the saint of Cologne brought thither

"That goodly virgin-band Th' eleven thousand maids chaste Ursula's command,"

who at departing,

"Each by her just bequest, Some special virtue gave, ordaining it to rest With one of her own sex";

which special virtues, the poet adds, were in aftertimes bestowed on Godiva, "that most princely dame," who freed Coventry from toll on the occasion of her famous ride.

But of all this history tells us nothing, even as it tells us nothing of Vespasian's visit to Exeter, or the founding of London by Brutus of Troy, in the days when the foundations of Rome were not laid. Coventry is not old in the sense wherein we apply the word to Colchester, York, Bath, or Winchester, and many towns dating from Roman or early Saxon times. If the site of the present city were ever occupied by the Romans--and the point is a doubtful one--their occupation left no permanent traces.[7] But just as families love to boast of a high and noble ancestry, so dwellers in cities and members of institutions delight to trace their origins back to a legendary past, and the fables of Brut, who came from Troy to London, or the story of Mempric, contemporary of David, and founder of the university of Oxford,[8] were once accepted as truth. We, however, are content to leave this record of obscure beginnings unexplored, confessing that we have, as Dugdale says, "so little light of story to guide us through those elder times."[9]

In truth, we hear nothing authentic concerning the Romans', and but rumours of the Danes', coming to Coventry. In 1016 the Northmen, led by Canute and the traitor Eadric Streona, laid waste the Midlands, and are said to have destroyed a nunnery on the spot founded by an obscure Saxon saint, the virgin Osburg, who probably came from the neighbouring house for nuns at Polesworth.[10] But S. Osburg is a shadowy figure, and the memory of her foundation has almost entirely passed away. The convent of the "convent town,"[11] did not gather together there until the middle of the eleventh century, when Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his wife Godiva, built a dwelling for an Abbot and twenty-four monks to live under the rule of S. Benedict. Thus was laid the first stone of a monastery which ranked with the Confessor's Abbey of Westminster, King Harold's College at Waltham, and the twin abbeys built by William I. and Matilda in their city of Caen, among the most famous foundations of that age. The monastery became the nucleus of a thriving town in later days, as was the case with Bury S. Edmund's, Abingdon, Reading, S. Alban's, and many other places in England.

It was a great time for the founding of religious houses, and the Confessor, as befitted one of known sanctity of life, greatly encouraged these pious deeds. "It behoves every man," ... runs his charter to the monks of Coventry, "diligently to incline to almsgiving, whereby he may release himself from the bonds of sin. For our Lord in a sermon thus speaketh: 'Lay up for yourselves with alms-deeds a treasure-hoard in heaven, and a dwelling with angels.'[12] For which needful things I make known to you all that I grant with full permission that the same gift which Leofric and Godgyuæ have given to Christ, and His dear Mother, and to Leofwin, the abbot, and the brethren within the minster at Coventry, for their souls to help, in land and in water, in gold and in silver, in ornaments, and in all other things, as full and as forth as they themselves possessed it, and as they that same minster worthily have enriched therewith, so I firmly grant it. And furthermore, I grant to them also, for my soul, that they have besides full freedom, sac and soc,[13] toll, team,[14] hamsocne,[15] foresteall,[16] blodewite,[17] fihtwite,[18] weardwite,[19] and mundbryce.[20] Now I will henceforward that it ever be a dwelling of monks, and let them stand in God's peace, and S. Mary's and in mine, and according to S. Benedict's rule, under the abbot's authority. And I will not in any wise consent that any man take away or eject their gift and their alms, or that any man have there any charge upon any things, or at any season, except the abbot and his brethren for this minster's need. And whosoever shall increase this alms with any good the Lord shall increase unto him Heaven's bliss; and whosoever shall take them away, or deprive the minster of anything at any time, let him stand in God's anger, and His dear Mother's and mine. God keep you all."[21]

Thus the monastery was endowed by Leofric and Godiva with twenty-four lordships of land; and by the king with full rights of jurisdiction over the tenants dwelling in these various estates, privileges greatly valued by the monks. They laid the two generous founders, the husband in one porch, the wife in the other, of the minster in Coventry, when they came to die. As for this building, it was one of the glories of the age, and seemed too narrow, a chronicler tells us, to contain the abundance of treasure within its walls. Godiva paid the most famous goldsmiths of her day to visit the place, and make reliquaries and images of saints to beautify the church she loved; she also gave a rosary of gems to hang about the neck of an image of the Virgin, her chief patroness. The monks, too, gathered in a great store of relics, whereof the most famous was an arm of S. Augustine of Hippo, brought from Pavia by Archbishop Ethelnoth, having been purchased for the sum of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

Of this minster, however, nought remains, and its successor, the Gothic cathedral, was destroyed after the Reformation. The legend of its foundress has been more enduring. Vulgarised by later associations, the narrative, in its early forms, has a grandeur which still impresses the imagination. The story was a favourite one with Landor from his boyhood, though his _Imaginary Conversation_, and Drayton's brief lines are less popularly known than the poem of Tennyson. There is no contemporary evidence to guide us, for Roger of Wendover, whose account of the famous ride is probably the earliest we possess, died in 1237,[22] some hundred and fifty years after the noble lady herself. The chroniclers differ as to the motive which prompted the undertaking, some asserting that the Coventry folk were to be freed thereby from a grievous incident of villeinage; others again[23] connecting it with the local immunity from the payment of toll--except for horses, a special feature of the market of Coventry.[24] It is in the latter connection that the story has impressed itself on the local mind.

"I Lueriche for the love of thee Doe make Coventre Tol-free,"

was written under a window placed in Trinity Church in Richard II.'s time in commemoration of the deed.[25]

"This cite shulde be free, and now is bonde, Dame goode Eve made hit free,"

wrote a discontented burger poet of the fifteenth century, when a custom for wool had been laid on the people of the town.[26]

Roger of Wendover tells us how the countess besought her husband continually, with many prayers to free the people from the toll; and though he refused and forbade her to approach him with this petition, "led by her womanly pertinacity," she repeated the request, until he gave answer: "Ride naked through the length of the market, when the people are gathered together, and when thou returnest, thy petition shall be fulfilled.... Then the countess, beloved of God, loosened her hair thus veiling her body, and then, mounting her horse and attended by two knights, she rode through the market seen of none, her white legs nevertheless appearing; and having completed her journey, returned to her husband rejoicing, and ... obtained from him what she had asked," for he forthwith gave the townsfolk a charter emancipating them from the aforesaid service.[27]

Naturally, the charter is not forthcoming, and historians have shrugged their shoulders at the mention of the story this many a day. It was not, however, until the time of Charles II. that the Godiva procession became a feature of Coventry fair. In 1678, we are told "Lady Godiva rode before the mayor to proclaim the fair" and the custom thus inaugurated obtains to this day. Of the window noted by Dugdale all traces disappeared amid the vandalism of the eighteenth century save a few fragments of glass now in the Archdeacon's chapel of Trinity Church, and of these one showing a tiny figure in a yellow dress riding a white horse and holding some foliage in the hand, is traditionally said to have formed part of the original design.[28]

Such is the story which some accept undoubting, others dismiss as fabulous, and a third school, following the lead of Mr Hartland[29] and perceiving in the tale elements which occur in the folk-lore of widely distant countries, regard as a reminiscence of heathen ritual, maybe some processional festivities of spring or summer.[30] In support of this contention it may be urged that the story is not peculiar to Coventry, that there is a good deal of evidence showing the part unclad or bough-clad women played in magical and religious rites,[31] that black-faced characters--whereof more presently--appear in festivals manifestly derived from heathendom, and that the "Peeping Tom" element may be part of the universal fairy tale which relates the punishment awaiting those who pry into sights forbidden. Moreover, the prominence given to the horse in the story is extremely suggestive. In one version it is the neighing of Godiva's steed that attracts the attention of the peeper, causing him to look forth from the window, whence it comes that in Coventry market there is no exemption from toll for horses.[32] It may not be too fanciful to recall in this connection the part played by the hobby-horse at folk-festivals, and the sacrificial character of the horse in Teutonic heathendom.[33]

The nearest variant of the Coventry story belongs to St Briavel's in the Forest of Dean, like Coventry a woodland district. Here it is said that the wife of one of the Earls of Hereford won from her lord privileges of woodcutting for the commonalty by undergoing a like ordeal.[34] In a Dunster tradition the parallel is not so close. Here Sir John de Mohun's wife gained from her husband for the Dunster folk as much common land as she could make the circuit of, barefoot, in a day's space.[35]

Godiva is always traditionally represented riding on a white horse. It is curious that in an illuminated document formerly in possession of the Smiths' company, two Godivas appear, one a white woman on a white horse and another a black woman on an elephant--the last in allusion to the elephant and castle, the arms of the city.[36] Black-a-vised characters--explained by various theories[37]--are of common occurrence at festivals on May Day and Midsummer; it is only about forty years ago that a Jack-o'-green and his attendant sweeps ceased to parade the city on May Day, while at Southam, near Coventry, and possibly in Coventry also, a "black lady" rode in the "show fair" as well as Godiva.[38]

As for the "Peeping Tom" incident it may well be older than the eighteenth century, when the first printed allusion appears.[38] A ballad written about 1650 mentions that Godiva ordered all persons to keep within doors during her ride and shut their windows[39]; but in a Coventry version given in the MS. city annals[40]--dating, it appears, before the use of glass became common in domestic buildings--the peeper is said to "let down" a window, _i.e._ the wooden shutter of early times. The famous figure of Peeping Tom, mentioned in the city accounts in the year 1773,[41] still looks out of the northeast top window of the "King's Head" in Hertford Street. It is a wooden figure, thought to represent S. George, with armour of the time of Henry VII, broad-toed sollerets, and under a monstrous and absurd three-cornered hat is a bascinet. The arms, as far as the elbow, have been hacked away, and to the spectator in the street the figure is only visible from the waist upwards.

For many people Coventry suggests Godiva. It is always well to bear in mind she was an authentic person, wife of Leofric, mother of Aelfgar, Earl of East Anglia, also buried in the monastery, grandmother of the Earls Edwin and Morkere, and of Aldgyth, first wife, then widow, of Gruffydd, Prince of Wales; then wife and widow of Harold, King of England. After Godiva's death, stories of her holy life and alms-deeds would be soon rife among the oppressed Saxons. It is noteworthy that Matilda, queen of Henry I., a sovereign of the old Saxon blood royal, and a most pious princess to boot, was called Godiva, no doubt in scorn of her birth, by the Norman courtiers.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: Harl. _MS._ 6195 f. 7.]

[Footnote 5: Poole, _Coventry_, 90. Elizabeth visited the city in 1565.]

[Footnote 6: _Polyolbion_, xiii.]

[Footnote 7: Some rough (?) Roman pavement was discovered in the Cross Cheaping during excavations at the end of the last century. _Victoria County Hist._ i. 246.]

[Footnote 8: Rashdall, _Universities_, ii. pt. ii. 323.]

[Footnote 9: Dugdale. _Warw._ i. 134.]

[Footnote 10: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 11: A convent is properly a _body_ of monks or nuns; a monastery or nunnery their habitation. The etymology of Coventry is dubious; but the popular derivation from the Lat. _conventus_ is now discredited. The earliest form in which the word occurs is Cofantreo. Here treo = tree, and Dr Hen. Bradley, to whom I am greatly indebted for information on this point, suggests a possible origin of the other syllables in a personal name, Cofa or Cufa; _cf._ Oswestry = Oswald's tree.]

[Footnote 12: See Matt. v. 20. This translation mainly follows Birch.]

[Footnote 13: Privilege of administering justice.]

[Footnote 14: Obscure. Birch says privilege of vouching to warranty.]

[Footnote 15: Power to punish for forcible entry.]

[Footnote 16: Power to inflict punishment for waylaying.]

[Footnote 17: Power to punish assault with bloodshed.]

[Footnote 18: Power to punish assault.]

[Footnote 19: Power to maintain watch.]

[Footnote 20: Power to punish for breach of peace.]

[Footnote 21: Add. MSS. Ch. 28657. Birch, _Edward the Confessor's Charter to Coventry_. "A most elegant specimen of eleventh century native palæography" (Birch).]

[Footnote 22: On events which occur before 1154 (or 1188) the chronicler is dependent on some earlier unknown writer (_Dict. Nat. Biography_, _s.v._ "Godiva").]

[Footnote 23: They follow Higden, author of the _Polychronicon_, who was the first to mention the ride in this connection. As a monk of S. Werburgh's, Chester, a city which held frequent intercourse with Coventry, he may have had opportunities of hearing the tale from local sources.]

[Footnote 24: In Coventry market the burgesses were free from toll, except for horses, in the time of Edward I. (Dugdale, _Warw._ i. 162).]

[Footnote 25: Dugdale, _Warw._ i. 135. Some tiny fragments of this window yet remain in the Archdeacon's Chapel of Trinity Church. See also _Gent. Mag._ (1829), pt. i. 120-1, for another account of the fragment.]

[Footnote 26: _Leet Book_ (E.E.T.S.), 567.]

[Footnote 27: Rog. Wendover, _Flores Historiarum_, i. 497.]

[Footnote 28: So an old sexton told Sharp, the antiquary. See also _Gent. Mag. Topography_, xiii. 53.]

[Footnote 29: _Science of Fairy Tales._]

[Footnote 30: Chambers, _Mediæval Stage_, i. 119.]

[Footnote 31: Grant Allen, _Evolution of the Idea of God_, 110 (festival of the Pòtraj).]

[Footnote 32: Hartland, _op. cit._, 77.]

[Footnote 33: As a tyro in folk-lore I venture with some diffidence to put forward the theory that it may be by research in custom and belief as regards the horse that we may arrive at an explanation of some of the problems of this mysterious legend. See Grimm, _Teut. Myth._ (trans. Stallybrass), 47, 392; Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 24, 64; Gomme, _Ethnology and Folk-lore_, 35; Chambers, _op. cit._, i. 131.]

[Footnote 34: Rudder, _Gloucestershire_, 307 (quoted Hartland).]

[Footnote 35: Camden, _Britannia_ (Gibson), 67. I am indebted to Mr Addy for this reference; _cf._ the story of the Tichbourne dole, Chambers, _Book of Days_, i. 167.]

[Footnote 36: _Coventry Standard_, Jan. 15-16, 1909. The MS. (1684-1833) has passed into private hands, and I have never been able to see it.]

[Footnote 37: Sir Lawrence Gomme explains the black Godiva by a reference to Pliny's account of the woad-stained British women, but see Chambers, _Mediæval Stage_, i. 125.]

[Footnote 38: _Science of Fairy Tales_, 71-92. Mr Hartland was the first folklorist to submit the story to scientific investigation. He gained his local knowledge of the Southam black Godiva from the late W.E. Fretton of Coventry.]

[Footnote 39: See _Dict. Nat. Biog._, _s.v._ "Godiva."]

[Footnote 40: Hartland, _op. cit._, 77.]

[Footnote 41: See _Dict. Nat. Biog._, _s.v._ "Godiva."]