An Early Instance of the Voyeur in the Story of Lady Godiva
2018; Oxford University Press; Volume: 65; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/notesj/gjy001
ISSN1471-6941
Autores Tópico(s)Medieval Literature and History
ResumoROGER of Wendover’s Flowers of History (Flores Historiarum, ca. 1235) is the first surviving text that documents the story of Lady Godiva, in which the wife of Earl Leofric rides naked through Coventry in order to free the town from heavy toll.1 Matthew Paris (d. 1259) borrowed heavily from Roger for his own very popular Flores Historiarum, thus bringing the Lady Godiva story to a wide audience.2 The story as told by Roger and his many medieval followers does not mention the voyeur, who, although well-known today as ‘Peeping Tom’, appears relatively late in the development of the story.3 Daniel Donoghue claims that the earliest reference to the voyeur is found in a 1634 journal by three soldiers of Norwich, in which an unnamed ‘wanton’ looks on Godiva as she rides naked through the town.4 The story is told in what seems to be a ballad stanza which was recalled to memory when the soldiers viewed a painting in a hall. The painting, Donghue argues, was likely Adam van Noort’s 1586 Lady Godiva, located in St Mary’s Hall in Coventry.5 This painting shows a man looking from an upstairs window on Lady Godiva riding through the street. This man could be either an anonymous voyeur or Earl Leofric, but within decades the voyeur becomes a vital part of the story even though the image of the man looking from the window was concealed by grime and varnish perhaps as early as 1681.6
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