The legend of Lady Godiva and the image of the female body

Abstract

Lady Godiva freed the city of Coventry from its burdensome tolls by riding naked through the market place. Ostensibly her legend explains how a town gained its freedom from a domineering overlord, yet the means for communicating this new civic identity are through the highly charged images of the female body. Godiva presents a complex and often ambiguous image, the meaning of which is not readily obvious from surviving medieval accounts of the legend. She simultaneously exhibits the seemingly contradictory images of the Virgin Mary, Eve and Mary Magdalene by assuming many of their physical attributes and actions, such as mediation, nudity and long hair. By examining the versions of this legend, and the way that Godiva is presented throughout them, we can see how the people of Coventry articulated their concerns about issues of order and disorder, social control and the function of the city.

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