In the coventry city museum, there is a world-famous oil painting. Oil painting, a white and slender woman, is naked to ride on a head of red vest white horse back, she closed her eyes, low head, fluffy hair covering the small half of the body... This painting is the city card of coventry - World famous painting 《Mrs. Godiva on horseback》. The woman in the picture is, of course, lady Godiva. In 1040, she was the wife of earl Leofric the Dane, who ruled coventry in England. But this lady Godiva is not like the French queen who said, "if there is no bread, cake will do." She is very kind and can understand the hardships of civilian life, so the local people respect her very much.
Godiva suffered greatly from the harsh taxes that Lord Leofric the Dane imposed on the people of his territory in order to support the army during the wars in England 1000 years ago. She repeated her entreaties to the count to reduce the tax. The count, of course, was angry that she was being unreasonable. One day he sneered to Mrs Godiva: "if you walk naked through the busiest street in coventry on the busiest market day of the month, I will give a tax cut to your beloved people." This sound is very unreasonable, similar to the current "if you can XXXX, then I live eat keyboard". The person who said this had no intention of eating the keyboard and was convinced that the other person couldn't do something. The count thinks so too. You see, you say how much you love your people, but do you dare to do it for them?
Lady Godiva she dared.
The rest of the story is not clearly documented, but the popular version goes like this: on the appointed day, lady Godiva stripped herself of all her clothes, covered only with her hair, and rode on a horse from the castle to the main street.
The streets of coventry were empty.
All of them stayed at home, with the doors closed and the Windows curtained, in their own way defending lady Godiva's dignity.
Count Leofric the Dane had nothing to say. He cut taxes as promised.
This romantic story, written by English painter John Maler Collier, became lady Godiva on horseback.
Because the story is so romantic, many people will doubt its truth and have many questions, such as:
Is Mrs. Godiva real?
Yes, Mrs Godiva's real name could be Godgifu, or God's gift. Her name appeared in the domesday book after the conquest of Normandy. After the earl's death, lady Godiva inherited a large amount of land and was one of the largest landlords of the dynasty. There were numerous monasteries on her land, and she, like Edward the confessor, a devout king of her time, gave much of her wealth to them. So lady Godiva's story was written two hundred years later by a monk, and there is a certain fictionality to it.
Did no one in the story really peek at lady Godiva?
No, there's a tailor named Tom who peeks out a window and is blinded by lightning. This is also the origin of the English word Peeping Tom.
Is it true that Mrs Godiva is not wearing any clothes?
Doubtful, existing documents are Latin translation, can not be accurately restored. Some scholars concluded that "naked" only symbolically stripped off all her jewelry and gorgeous outer clothes, removed all the decorations on her head and wore a white underwear with a headpiece. When the whole city was hidden in their homes, she slowly rode from one end of the town to the other end of the town. The earl kept his promise to exempt coventry from taxes.
But no matter what, people are more likely to believe in beauty and are willing to put a romantic spin on it. Lady Godiva's name will always be remembered, especially in coventry, where the event is celebrated every year as the Godiva Festival. Lady Godiva's works have become the name card of coventry city. Many artists have created works for this purpose. Here are some of the more famous works.
The bronze sculpture in Broadgate square in the centre of coventry was given by Mr W.H. bassett-green (then worth £20,000).
Godiva's sculptures are also on display at Maidstone Museum & Art Gallery in Kent.
Oil paintings based on this story.
Lady Godiva's story is a perfect story of a kind person with a good ending. Although it cannot stand scrutiny, the spirit of courage, kindness, honesty and good for good is still worth recalling.