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_The Story of Coventry_
[Illustration: _Henry VI._
_from the painting in the National Portrait Gallery._]
_The Story of_ Coventry
_by Mary Dormer Harris_
_Illustrated by Albert Chanler_
[Illustration]
_London: J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd._
_Aldine House_ _Bedford Street_
_Covent Garden W.C._ 1911
_All rights reserved_
AD MATREM
PREFACE
In preparing this volume for the press I have omitted some of the
matter in _Life in an Old English Town_, which did not seem suitable
for this series, and added fresh material likely to be useful to
those who wished to identify the historic sites, and see the historic
buildings of Coventry. In expanding Chapter XV. in so far as it dealt
with the Corpus Christi plays--a task the labours of Dr Hardin Craig
have rendered comparatively light--I have been able to add one hitherto
unpublished item to the subject of the mediæval dramatic history of
Coventry (p. 296), and dispel the idea that the name "S. Crytyan"
given to a play acted in 1505 is a misreading for S. Catherine. For
permission to publish this item I am indebted to the kindness of Mr
William Page, F.S.A., editor of the _Victoria County History_. Another
point remotely bearing upon the pageants is the chronology of royal
visits to Coventry (p. 288), which I have endeavoured to clear up as
far as I could, Sharp's _Dissertation on the Coventry Mysteries_, the
usual guide in these matters, being extremely faulty in this respect
on account of the confusion which prevails in the MS. annals or
mayor-lists, on which he depended for dates. Of these extant lists,
both in print and in MS., I have given a detailed account (p. 106) in
connection with the entry concerning Prince Henry's supposed arrest
by Mayor Hornby, a matter which, in view of the Shakespearean interest
involved, is more fully treated of here than in my previous book.
My thanks are due to Mr J. Munro and the Early English Text Society
for the kind permission to print extracts from Dr Craig's _Two Corpus
Christi Plays_ and from my own edition of the _Leet Book_. To Mr
George Sutton, Town Clerk of Coventry, and all the unfailing courteous
officials with whom I so constantly came in contact during my work, I
must (not for the first time) express my gratitude. My obligations to
Messrs Longmans and the Society of Antiquaries for permission to print
portions of Chapters XII. and XIII. respectively have been acknowledged
in my previous work.
MARY DORMER HARRIS
Leamington, _Aug. 7, 1911_.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
_The Three Spires and Coventry_ 1
CHAPTER I
_Leofric and Godiva_ 14
CHAPTER II
_The Benedictine Monastery_ 24
CHAPTER III
_The Chester Lordship_ 37
CHAPTER IV
_Beginnings of Municipal Government_ 45
CHAPTER V
_Prior's-half and Earl's-half_ 56
CHAPTER VI
_The Seigniory of the Prior and Queen Isabella_ 66
CHAPTER VII
_The Corporation and the Guilds_ 73
CHAPTER VIII
_The Mayor, Bailiffs, and Community_ 84
CHAPTER IX
_Coventry and the Kingdom of England_ 95
CHAPTER X
_The Red and White Rose_ 112
CHAPTER XI
_The Last Struggle of York and Lancaster--the
Tudors and Stuarts_ 135
CHAPTER XII
_The Lammas Lands_ 169
CHAPTER XIII
_The Companies of the Crafts_ 212
CHAPTER XIV
_Daily Life in the Town--the Merchants and the
Market_ 233
CHAPTER XV
_Daily Life in the Town (continued)--Religion and
Amusements of the Townsfolk_ 269
CHAPTER XVI
_Old Coventry at the Present Day_ 317
_Index_ 346
ILLUSTRATIONS
_King Henry VI._ (_From a painting in the National
Portrait Gallery; painter unknown_) _Photogravure Frontispiece_
HALF-TONE
FACING PAGE
_A Courtyard in Little Park Street_ 6
_Smithford Street_ 82
_Palace Yard_ 166
_Council Chamber, showing Panelling_ 174
_Bablake and S. John's Church_ 208
_New Street_ 224
_Butcher Row_ 228
_Mayoress' Parlour, showing State Chair_ 338
LINE
PAGE
_The Two Spires from top of Bishop Street_ 2
_8 Much Park Street_ 5
_Remains of Old Wall--back of Godiva Street_ 7
_Saint John the Baptist, Coventry_ 9
_Gosford Green_ 11
_24 Gosford Street_ 12
_130 Far Gosford Street_ 13
_Godiva Window_ 20
_Heraldic Tile found in Hales Street_ 21
_Peeping Tom_ 23
_Cathedral Ruins_ 24
_Carved Miserere Seat, S. Michael's Church_ 25
_Priory Row, Coventry_ 27
_Cheylesmore Manor House_ 39
_Gable of Cheylesmore Manor House_ 43
_34 Far Gosford Street_ 52
_Old Whitefriars' Monastery, now Coventry Union_ 54
_40 Far Gosford Street_ 58
_Courtyard, S. Mary's Hall, Coventry_ 78
_Minstrel Gallery, S. Mary's Hall_ 81
_The City Keys_ 85
_The City Mace--The Sword_ 86
_The Old State Chair_ 89
_High Street, Coventry_ 99
_View of Interior of Saint Michael's_ 117
_Gosford Street_ 123
_Smithford Street, Coventry_ 136
_Cook Street Gate_ 142
_Old House in Little Park Street_ 148
_Queen Mary's Chamber_ 164
_Swanswell Gate_ 167
_The Council Chamber, S. Mary's Hall_ 185
_Trinity Lane_ 213
_Arms of City of Coventry_ 214
_Old House beside S. Mary's Hall_ 235
_Whitefriars' Lane_ 239
_Oriel Window and Stocks, S. Mary's Hall_ 241
_Old Bablake School_ 260
_Ford's Hospital_ 261
_Holy Trinity Church_ 271
_Swillington's Tomb, S. Michael's Church_ 274
_Pulpit, Holy Trinity Church_ 277
_Old House in Cox Street_ 291
_36 Gosford Street_ 293
_91 Gosford Street_ 294
_Old House in Cox Street_ 295
_Entrance to Kitchen, S. Mary's Hall_ 331
_Archdeacon's Chapel, Holy Trinity Church_ 340
_The Staircase, Old Bablake School_ 344
The Story of Coventry
INTRODUCTION
_The Three Spires and Coventry_
"Now flourishing with fanes, and proud pyramidès,
Her walls in good repair, her ports so bravely built,
Her halls in good estate, her cross so richly gilt,
As scorning all the Towns that stand within her view."
Drayton, _Polyolbion_, xiii.
Time has brought many changes since old Drayton thus vaunted the
stateliness of Coventry. The walls, the cross are gone, and of the
twelve stately gates, but two remain. Gone, too, is the splendid
conduit in the Cross Cheaping, S. Nicholas' Hall in the West Orchard,
meeting-place of the Corpus Christi guild; and S. Nicholas' Church, out
to the north beyond Bishop Street, which fell to ruin soon after the
Reformation. But the "proud pyramidès," the "three spires," remain yet,
and give greeting to all who approach Coventry, dominating the flat
midland country for many a mile, changing their relative position as
the spectator moves, and their colour in the shifting lights. Highest
and fairest of all--so "the Archangel," says Fuller, "eclipseth the
Trinity,"--is the nine-storied belfry of S. Michael's, tower, octagon
and spire, a wonderful example of symbolism of design and harmonious
disposal of ornament. The tower, begun in 1373, was the gift--says
tradition--of the men of the Botoner family, the spire of its women,
not the least among the many noteworthy achievements that in Coventry
history are linked with a woman's name.
[Illustration: THE TWO SPIRES FROM TOP OF BISHOP STREET]
Such a medley is Coventry that the great steeple over-shadows quiet,
memory-haunted places, and streets filled with the clamour of traffic,
pleasant houses rich men have lately built, and squalid courts, that
occupy the site of many an ancient burgage croft and garden. It is
a typically English city, whose history might serve as the "abstract
and brief chronicle" of England. A thoroughly corrupt borough in
the worst days of municipal corruption, rigidly Puritan under the
Stuarts, loyal under Elizabeth, steady for hereditary right at Mary's
accession--but Protestant, as witness its martyrs--Lollard in the
hey-day of Lollardry, patriotic and Talbot-worshipping in the Hundred
Years' War--as England was, so was Coventry. In art and letters, also,
the city recalls what is most characteristic in the achievements of the
English people. Here flourished mediæval architecture, an art wherein
Englishmen have excelled greatly, and the mediæval religious drama,
foundation of Shakespeare's greatness; while chance, and the sojourn
of George Eliot, have given the city associations with the literary
outburst of the Victorian time.
The doings of Coventry folk or the happenings within the city must have
impressed the minds of generations of English folk, since the name has
entered into folk rhymes[1] and flower names, and proverbial English
speech. Old botanists speak of "Coventry bells" and "Coventry Marians,"
where now we say "Canterbury bells"; children play card-games called
"Peeping Tom" or "Moll of Coventry"; and we still, by silent avoidance
of our friends, "send them to Coventry," a reminiscence maybe of the
uncivil treatment the city Roundheads gave to imprisoned Cavaliers what
time the bitterness engendered by the Civil War was abroad in the land.
Interesting too--albeit scanty--are the relics of legendary lore
and heathen custom which ofttimes perplex the student of the city's
history. Here was played the Hox-Tuesday play, survival, say
folklorists, of the struggle to gain possession of a victim for the
sacrifice; here the national legend of Godiva grew up; and here, men
fabled, S. George, patron of England, was born.
In the country round about Coventry two Englands meet, one a land of
green woods and well-watered pastures, the other black with the toil of
the coal-fields. The city turns its most prosperous side southwards,
and the common view of the spires is the one from the south, where
the tree-bordered road from Kenilworth, whereon so many kings and
queens have travelled, slips into Coventry, past a fringe of ample,
comfortable houses, that the well-to-do have raised in our own time.
This was Tennyson's view of the spires, and George Eliot must have
seen it daily in her school-life, which she passed in the house that
is farthest from the town in Warwick Row. It is the common view,
but not the most interesting, since the octagonal Decorated steeple
of Christchurch, recased in fresh stone, last remnant of the now
demolished church of the Greyfriars, is the least commanding of the
three, and by its nearness somewhat dwarfs the rest. The Greyfriars
of Coventry, be it said, have gained by a scribe's error, a probably
quite unmerited fame as producers of the noted Corpus Christi plays; in
reality, this honour should belong to the lay-folk and craftspeople of
the city.
It is well--so the journey is made from the south--to gain a more
distant view of the "proud pyramidès" over the flat fields from the
Stoneleigh Road, where Christchurch falls into its proper place. The
trees make the way through Stoneleigh a lovely one, and the village
church, redolent of eighteenth century peace, with a magnificent Norman
chancel arch, furnishes a fine excuse for delay. Nearer to Coventry
the way winds on over Finham Bridge, shadowed by poplars, and through
Stivichall, a hamlet the widow of Earl Ranulf of Chester gave to the
Bishop of Lichfield for the welfare of her husband's soul. Allotment
gardens and newly-built streets occupy the land to the south-east
of the city, formerly known as the Little Park, once part of a royal
estate. It is a commonplace-looking site nowadays, albeit thronged with
memories. Here Lollard sermons have been preached and miracle-plays
played, and hither Laurence Saunders and others were led out to be
burned in 1556, on ground now occupied by a factory, where once long
after men discovered charred fragments of a stake. They are building
streets over the Park area by the station nowadays; but this was a
practice inaugurated long ago when Much Park Street (_vicus parci
maioris_) and Little Park Street (_vicus parci minoris_) were built
on ground cut out of the royal estate. The east end of Little Park
Street may be reached by Park Road, past a newly-raised memorial to the
Coventry martyrs.
[Illustration:
8 MUCH PARK ST]
Much Park Street led by Whitefriars through Newgate to the London
Road; Little Park Street led but to a postern gate. In Stuart
times the latter road had little traffic and much social dignity;
beautiful houses stood therein with spacious gardens, where dwelt the
neighbouring gentry, who were wont to enjoy the amenities of urban
life for a season, a common feature of the social life of country
towns at that period. Sir Orlando Bridgman's house, most magnificent
example of these gentlefolks' dwellings, was wantonly demolished in
the early nineteenth century, though the Jacobean mantelpiece from
the presence-chamber is still preserved in the school at Bablake. The
street still retains in Banner House, and a lovely little quadrangle of
the time of William III., relics of the grandeur of that bygone time.
[Illustration: A COURTYARD IN LITTLE PARK STREET]
The London Road comes past Whitley, a manor held in the fifteenth
century by William Bristow, the most troublesome and litigious person
in Coventry history, and Shortley, where in Edward II.'s time, one
John de Nottingham, a necromancer, dwelled, concerning whom there is
much to be found in this book. At Shortley is the Charter-house where,
incorporated in a modern dwelling, are remains of the Carthusian
monastery, which the Botoners helped to build, and whereof Richard
II. was patron. Wayfarers from London and Daventry (Shakespeare's
"Daintry") entered the town at Newgate by Whitefriars, the modern
workhouse. At Newgate the mural circuit was begun in 1356, when
Richard Stoke, mayor, laid the first stone. Here, too, in August 1642,
Charles I. made a breach in the town wall, whereat divers Cavaliers
found entrance; but so vehement was the onslaught made upon them by
the townsfolk--men and women--and so impregnable were the citizens'
barricades of carts and furniture, that the Royalists withdrew
discomfited. Another breach in the wall, twenty years later, made
also at Newgate, marked the beginning of the work of dismantling the
fortifications. This was done by order of Charles II. to avenge the old
affront offered to his father, and occupied 500 men for three weeks and
three days. The superstitious found in the destruction of the walls
the subject of one of the famous Mother Shipton's prophecies. It was
foretold, they said, "that a pigeon should pull them down," and in
truth they were dismantled in Thomas Pigeon's mayoral year.[2]
[Illustration: REMAINS OF OLD WALL--BACK OF GODIVA STREET]
From Little Park Street only two spires are seen; and but the same
number is visible in Bishop Street, which lies to the north. The
traveller comes almost suddenly into the turmoil of this street from
the pleasant uplands of Fillongley, where the Hastings' family had a
castle, and the Shakespears a farm-house, and Corley, of George Eliot
memories, with its prehistoric camp on the Rock. It is good to see but
two spires, that it may serve as a reminder that the church of the
Greyfriars is but an unessential feature in Coventry history. The twin
steeples of S. Michael's and Trinity represent the two parishes--the
two estates, Earl's-half and Prior's-half--which anciently composed the
city.
Maybe these two steeples look most magnificent in the twilight from
Poolmeadow, formerly covered by a sheet of water known as S. Osburg's
Pool. This is a bare place running east and west of Priory Street,
to the north of the site of the ancient monastery. By daylight the
surroundings of Poolmeadow are unbeautiful enough, yet it is in some
respects the most interesting spot in Coventry, since it is connected
with the earliest name that occurs in Coventry history.
What connection there was between the Saint, whose nunnery the Danes
destroyed, and this pool, we know not. At her shrine in the priory were
miracles wrought, and her head seems to have appeared among the relics
treasured by the religious house at the Dissolution.
Another non-parochial church comes very prominently into view when the
approach is made from the south-west, Canley and Hearsall, though I
imagine that few enter by those by-lanes save the ruddy, brown-gaitered
farmers on their way to the Friday market. This is the guild-church
of S. John the Baptist at Bablake, whereof the tower, that has a
fortress-like touch, rises high above the roofs of the town. Even the
sea-element is not lacking in the history of this inland city, since
the guild brethren declared that they wished to raise this church in
part as a memorial "for the good success the king had upon the sea"
upon S. John's day--probably at the battle of Sluys, June 24, 1340.[3]
Hard by this church and the collegiate buildings clustered behind it
stood Bablake Gate, and all who came by the great highway leading from
the north-west--now called the Holyhead Road--made their entrance
there. Before coming to Bablake, however, wayfarers would cross the
Sherbourne at Spon, close by the chapel of S. James and S. Christopher,
now incorporated in a modern dwelling-place. Here they would, belike,
pay their devotions just as other travellers coming from London and
Daventry paid theirs at the Lady Tower, wherein was a wooden image
of our Lady, hard by Newgate and Whitefriars.
[Illustration:
SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST
COVENTRY]
Smithford Street, which reminds us of the early activity of the
workers in iron, leads to Bablake, and by the bridge there tradition
says that there grew a great tree "that from the strangeness of the
fruit was called Quient" (quaint), an imaginary etymology of the name
Coventry. Modern scholars are, however, agreed that it was from some
memorable (and possibly sacred) tree that the earliest form of the word
"Cofantreo" is derived.
[Illustration:
Gosford Green]
To those who look on the spires from Gosford and the eastern side
the tall ones appear in their relatively close proximity. This is
the entrance to Coventry where most historical associations abound.
"Two dukes should 'a fought on Gosford Green," succinctly say the
city annals in 1397, but, as all the world knows, Richard II. forbade
Bolingbroke and Mowbray to fight. Sinister memories for the House of
York are connected with the Green, for here in 1469 Queen Elizabeth,
Woodville's father, Lord Rivers, and her brother, John, were beheaded
by Warwick's orders. It is said that it was on this side of the city
that Edward IV. advanced in 1471, what time the King-maker held the
city against him. Further west, beyond Far Gosford Street, is Dover
Bridge, whereon once stood S. George's Chapel, meeting-place of the
tailors and shearmen's guild, demolished in 1821. Outside this chapel
once hung the blade-bone of the dun-cow, slain, says the legend, by
Guy of Warwick of famous memory.
[Illustration: 24 Gosford ST]
In Gosford Street, long, ancient and grimy, was formerly the first
station for the performances of the pageants; and in Cox Street,
anciently Mill Lane, which runs to the north of Gosford, were the
pageant-houses or places for storage of theatrical paraphernalia owned
by the crafts. From Gosford the long thoroughfare street passes into
Jordan Well--commemorating the well sunk by Jordan Shepey, mayor of
Coventry, who died 1349, the year of the Black Death--and thence into
Earl Street, where, it may be, a castle of the Earls of Chester once
stood with an entrance at Broadgate.
[Illustration:
130 FAR Gosford ST]
To see the spire of S. Michael's alone it is best to leave this long
thoroughfare and turn to the right by a half-timbered Tudor house down
the narrowness of Pepper Lane where the immense steeple almost seems to
blot out the sky.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Northall, _Eng. Folk Rhymes_, 403.]
[Footnote 2: Mayor-list or MS. Annals (eighteenth century) in the
possession of Mr Eynon of Leamington.]
[Footnote 3: Morris, _S. John's Church_.]
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]
[Illustration: GODIVA WINDOW]
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]
[Illustration: HERALDIC TILE FOUND IN HALES STREET]
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.
[Illustration: PEEPING TOM]
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."]