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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1999-06 > 0930156847


From: Don Stone < >
Subject: Re: Lady Godiva
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 12:54:07 -0400


"Sharp, Ann" wrote:
>
> An alternative version of Lady Godiva's ride renders the word
> "uncovered" rather than "naked" -- she may have made the ride with her hair
> uncovered but not the rest of her. Between the weather (probably CHILLY)
> and saddle sores on bare skin, "naked" sounds pretty uncomfortable.

Still another version, from Karl Hafele's Die Godivasage und ihre
Behandlung in der Literatur (1929): the legend may have arisen from a
misinterpretation of the statement that Lady Godiva "stripped herself"
(denudata) of her worldy possessions, donating them to Coventry Abbey.

But I agree with VCH Warwick, vol. 8: the City of Coventry and Borough
of Warwick, that it is more likely that the monks of Coventry, unable to
suppress the pagan fertility cult, reoriented it by substituting the
pious Countess Godiva for the fertility goddess who rode naked in an
annual springtime procession.

-- Don Stone

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