HOME OF LADY GODIVA

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 148, 18 March 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOME OF LADY GODIVA

Address On Early Coventry

“Reminiscences of our Home Districts” was the subject of an address given by Professor James Shelley at th® monthly gathering of the Birmingham and Midland Counties’ Association, held in Wellington this week. Professor Shelley gave an interesting, account of the early days of Coventry, an important town having a mayor and other civic distinctions and privileges centuries before Birmingham. He described the foundation in 1043 of a Benedictine monastery by Leofric. Earl of Mercia, and his devoted wife, the saintly Countess Godiva, and the legend surrounding her efforts for the poor, who were ground down by excessive taxation levied upou the city. The Countess pleaded with her lord on their behalf. The Earl indignantly refused to abate the toll, and. ill half anger and half jest, promised relief on one condition—that she would ride naked on horseback through the market place. To the Earl s astonishment, the countess accepted the challenge, the inhabitants remaining indoors out of respect, save one curious tailor, who came to be known as “Peeping Tom,” and as a penalty was bereft of his sight. ....... . So ran the legend, but historic records were silent upon this theme, said the speaker, and it was fairly certain that the “Peeping Tom” incident was an invention of the post-Reformation period, when the "Godiva Procession” was inaugurated. The importance of Coventry in the fifteenth century as the centre for the buying and selling of wool and the making of cloth, was eloquently demonstrated by the magnificent churches built, and the 'sumptuous monuments erected to commemorate the local merchant princes of the period. The musical programme following was contributed by Mrs. Roberts (piano solos). Mrs. Eckhoff, Messrs. Roberts and (jprringe £spjlgsL..«nd Miss Madden (dauceek