Godiva (Godgifu) of Coventry 
Godiva (Godgifu) was born in 0980 in Mercia, England.1 Godiva (Godgifu)'s father was Thorold of Buckingham Sheriff of Lincolnshire. She was an only child. She died at the age of 87 on September 10th, 1067.1 General Notes
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Godiva, Lady (flourished about 1040-80), Anglo-Saxon noblewoman, wife of Leofric, earl of Mercia (flourished 1005-57). She is known to have persuaded her husband to found monasteries at Coventry (1043) and Stow. According to legend, she obtained a reduction in the excessive taxes levied by her husband on the people of Coventry by consenting to ride naked through the town on a white horse. Only one person disobeyed her orders to remain indoors behind closed shutters; this man, a tailor known afterward as Peeping Tom, peered through a window and immediately became blind. The oldest form of the legend is in the 13th-century Flores Historiarum (Flowers of the Historians). A festival in her honor was instituted as part of Coventry Fair in 1678.
Source: 'The World Book Encyclopedia', 1968, p G235. 'Godiva, Lady,' Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1993
Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1993 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation
Details of Godiva (Godgifu)'s family with Leofric III Earl of Mercia
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Further sources/citations:
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America bef 1760 @ line 176A pp 151-152, large-G675.FTW, 11615-2.ftw, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America bef 1760 @ line 176A pp 151-152
Further sources/citations:
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America bef 1760 @ line 176A pp 151-152, large-G675.FTW, 11615-2.ftw, Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America bef 1760 @ line 176A pp 151-152
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