Lady Godiva: the Naked Truth

RightThe expanding Now Harvard universe TOGLESS TROTTING Lady Godiva: The Naked Truth it happens, most medieval scholars agree the ride never took place. Profes- sor of English and American literature and language Daniel Donoghue exam- ines the origins and cultural signi- ficance of the myth in Lady Godiva: A Literary History of the Legend (Blackwell), and o≠ers insights into how that myth has evolved over the centuries. “The story,” he notes, “was based on the life of Godifu, a real woman who lived in Coventry in the latter part of the eleventh century and was married to one of the most powerful men in England.” Contemporary historians did not con- sider Godifu particularly noteworthy; what little was written about her at the time mentioned her merely as the wife of a famous man. But Donoghue points out that “two centuries after her death, chron- iclers in the Benedic- taggering beneath the yoke of A detail (right) of this 1586 tine abbey of St. Al- painting may show Leofric oppressive taxes, the medieval res- checking his wife’s progress. bans inserted a fully idents of Coventry, England, Later viewers may have taken developed narrative pleaded in vain for relief. Ironi- him for Peeping Tom. into their Latin histo- cally, deliverance would come horse, naked, through the ries” and the legend of Sfrom the wife of the very lord who streets of the town at mid- Lady Godiva was scorned their pleas. Lady Godiva repeat- day. When she took him at born. “Nobody knows edly urged her husband, Leofric, to his word and set out on her famous ride, quite why the legend was invented and lessen the people’s tax burden, and time the highborn Lady Godiva became an attached to her name,” he says, “but it and again he refused. Yet she persisted, instant heroine to the common people does seem to function as a kind of myth and one day in exasperation he told her of Coventry. of origin for the town of Coventry. At the he would lower taxes when she rode a A fascinating piece of history. But as end, Count Leofric seals the agreement Lady Godiva, oil on canvas, by Adam van Noort Harvard Magazine 9 Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, UK/Bridgeman Art Library Right Now about taxes with his own seal.” on taxes. She rides naked through the taken over that role from written and One of the myth’s most interesting streets of the city, yet remains chaste. She spoken tales. “One reason I decided to subplots involves the role of “Peeping is a member of the ruling class who write this book was that the legend is Tom,” who doesn’t even appear in the nonetheless sympathizes with the plight dying out,” says Donoghue. “Our chil- story until the seventeenth century. Ac- of ordinary people. Like other myths, this dren know about Godiva Chocolates, cording to legend, the people of Coven- one o≠ers ways to resolve—symbolically, and they may have a visual image of a try, as a gesture of respect and apprecia- at least—such conflicting social and sex- naked woman on a horse, but really tion for Lady Godiva’s actions on their ual dynamics. Myths have also tradition- know nothing about the story.” behalf, stayed indoors behind shuttered ally done what Donoghue describes as charles coe windows to preserve her modesty as she the “cultural work” of passing down his- passed. Everyone, that is, except Tom, tory, tradition, and shared values. Now Daniel Donoghue e-mail address: whose lustful curiosity compelled him to movies and television have essentially [email protected] gaze at her and who was then, according to various versions of the legend, struck VERACITY’S VIGORISH either blind or dead in punishment. “Over time, Tom would become the scapegoat and bear the symbolic guilt for people’s desire to look at this naked Integrity Has Its Price woman,” says Donoghue. Tom would also become a compelling figure for magine: A complete stranger at Wal-Mart: seller reputation. Where artists and authors. In A Tour Thro’ the promises a brand-new digital cam- brick-and-mortar merchants build repu- Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-27), era if you’ll send $100. Once the tations over time by selling brand-name Daniel Defoe visited Coventry and spoke check clears, you’re told, the camera products of verifiable quality, however, of “the poor fellow that peep’d out of the will be in the mail. Yeah, right. The “No seller has been long in the electronic window to see her…looking out of a Gar- Isame stranger probably has a bridge to marketplace,” says Ramsey professor of ret in the High Street of the City.” Ten- sell, too. What makes this transaction political economy Richard Zeckhauser. nyson’s “Godiva” was a poem that, more sound so implausible is that it requires Most on-line sellers have had little op- than any other literary or historical work trusting a stranger. Yet thousands of portunity to establish reputations, and of its time, created a standard—and trust-based transactions occur daily be- few can deploy tools like advertising and highly romanticized—version of the leg- tween strangers—and yield satisfied cus- favorable word-of-mouth. end for the Victorian era. In the poem, tomers—on the auction website eBay. But through eBay’s Feedback Forum, a Tom was blinded: “…but his eyes, before Trust on eBay arises from the same so-called “reputation system” that lets they had their will,/ Were shrivell’d into source as it does at the corner store and users rate and comment on transac- darkness in his head,/And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait/On noble deeds, cancell’d a sense misused;/And she, that knew not, pass’d….” Given the sexual tension that the ap- pearance of Tom creates between the ob- server and the observed, the prurient and the chaste, the punished and the rewarded, Donoghue writes, “Their pairing anticipates Sigmund Freud’s clinical definitions of scopophilia and exhibitionism in terms of one another so well that he almost seems to have Peeping Tom in mind for the former and Lady Godiva for the latter. Only in recent years has Peeping Tom become extri- cated from the Godiva legend to the ex- tent that it is possible to mention one without calling to mind the other.” The Godiva myth is filled with contra- dictions. The lady is obedient to her husband, yet boldly challenges his position COLLAGE BY TOM MOSSER 10 July - August 2003.

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