As an addendum to my recent article on the relationship between the repressive Norman yoke imposed upon the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of England by William Conqueror and the jews. Where I focused on the socio-economic aspects of that repression and the jews that William invited to England from his lands in northern France. (1) I wanted to briefly discuss the famous naked horseback ride through the streets of Coventry by the aristocratic Anglo-Saxon lady Godiva (or alternatively Godgifu or Godgyfu): (2) the wife of Leofric the powerful Earl of Mercia.
The essence of the Godiva story (and we know Godiva was a real historical individual per the references to her in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Domesday Book) is that her husband Leofric was imposing extremely heavy and unjust taxes on his subjects and on whose behalf Godiva remonstrated with her husband. Leofric then, on the presumption she would never do such a thing as an extremely devout Christian, told Godiva that if she rode naked through the streets of Coventry then he would do as she requested.
Godiva then proclaimed that all the residents of the town would stay inside and close the shutters on their windows: she then proceeded to ride naked through the town covered only by her long hair. Her stunned husband Leofric then makes good on his promise and everyone is happy as truth and justice have now been restored to Mercia.
Such is the story as transmitted down to use by the twelfth century English chroniclers Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris.
Now speaking superficially there is no reference to jews in either the accounts of Roger of Wendover or Matthew Paris regarding Godiva's ride, but it is worth noting this story is unlikely to literally true. Although it being based on some kind of factual foundation seems almost certain as it is not the likeliest tale for Christian monastic authors to invent.
What seems reasonable to infer from the tale itself is that Godiva was an opponent of needlessly heavy (i.e., unjust/usurious) taxation/economic exploitation and was prepared to go to great lengths to stand up for the rights of the English people. It is also worth mentioning that her naked ride occurred around the same time as William the Conqueror's invasion of England (which she lived through and for up to twenty years after it [with her lands and status intact]) although the actual ride itself is usually dated to a less than a decade before said invasion.
Despite this the Godiva legend itself is almost certainly a post-Norman creation given that it takes at least two to three decades for a real event to become a popular folkloric narrative. (3) This would mean that the economic oppressors, assuming that Godiva's ride did indeed take place before the Norman invasion of England in 1066, of the folkloric ride (i.e., the Normans and their agents) would not have been the same economic oppressors that she actually rode against (i.e., her husband Leofric and his agents).
Now while there were no jews in England during the Anglo-Saxon era (that we know of anyway): the Normans quickly invited some to settle there and they (as I covered in my previous article) became the principle financial agents in the Norman social and economic war against the Anglo-Saxon nobility and commons (so much so that any jew was regarded as part of the Norman oppressing class). (4)
This means that when the ride of Lady Godiva was actually being recounted as a legendary moralistic tale of the triumph of good works over evil inclinations: then the principle villains that people had in mind was not Earl Leofric and his agents, but rather the Norman aristocracy and their jewish financial agents.
After all it is was to the jews that the common people and nobility had recourse to in order to gain the money to pay the Norman taxes: (5) so why on earth would they not see King Leofric and his agents as the historical precedent for their trouble with Norman overlords and jewish usurers?
References
(1) https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/william-the-conqueror-and-the-jews
(2) http://www.parsons55.net/godiva/
(3) Cf. The comments of James Holt, 1989, 'Robin Hood', 2nd Edition, Thames & Hudson: London; Stephen Knight, 2003, 'Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography', 1st Edition, Cornell University Press: Ithaca
(4) Robert Chazan, 2006, 'The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom, 1000 – 1500', 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York, p. 154
(5) Christopher Dyer, 2002, 'Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain, 850 – 1520', 1st Edition, Yale University Press: New Haven, pp. 177-178