Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history.

We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades.

We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders,

to find the stories big and small that tell us how we got here.

Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval.

Music really were with gone medieval. In the year of our Lord 1057, having founded this monastery by the advice of his wife,

the noble Countess Godiva, Leifrich, at the prayer of a religious woman, placed monks therein,

and so enriched them with lands, woods and ornaments, that there was not found in all England

a monastery with such an abundance of gold and silver, gems and costly garments.

The Countess Godiva, who was a great lover of God's mother, longing to free the town

of Coventry from the oppression of a heavy toll, often with urgent prayers besought her

husband that from regard to Jesus Christ and his mother he would free the town

from that service and from all other heavy burdens. And when the Earl sharply rebuked her

for foolishly asking what was so much to his damage and always forbade her ever more to speak to him on the subject.

And while she, on the other hand, with a woman's pertinacity, never ceased to exasperate her husband

on the matter, he at last made her this answer. Mount your horse and ride naked before all the people through the market

of the town from one end to the other, and on your return, you shall have your request. On which

Godiva replied, but will you give me permission if I am willing to do it?

I will, said he, whereupon the Countess, beloved of God,

loosed her hair and let down her tresses, which covered the whole of her body like a veil,

and then mounting her horse and attended by two knights. She rode through the marketplace

without being seen, except her fair legs. And having completed the journey, she returned with

...