Coventry's origins

MR, I remember seeing those chalked on walls in some places. Amazing what you notice when passing in a bus.

Maybe nothing new, but just came across this: The origin of the city name is a matter of debate. Traditional history says that it was a combination of Old English words meaning 'Cofa's tree', a tree marking the boundary of lands owned by a man named Cofa. An alternative explanation is that the name comes from 'Couaentree', a settlement at 'the place where the waters meet' (i.e. at the confluence of the Sherbourne and Radford Brook). Other theories suggest that the name comes from the Romano-British water deity Coventina, but perhaps the best explanation I have heard is that the name is a combination of 'coven', meaning a convent, and the Celtic word 'tre', meaning a town, or settlement. So you have a town near a convent, which makes sense given the nunnery founded by St Osburga around AD 700. Coventry really owes its prominence in English history to two people; Earl Leofric of Mercia and his wife, Godiva. Leofric was one of the richest men in the country, and between them, Leofric and Godiva controlled vast estates. They lavished money and estates on Coventry, founding a Benedictine monastery to replace the Saxon nunnery, which had been destroyed by Cnut's Danes in 1016. The monastery became the Priory of St Mary, and the priory church was later raised to cathedral status.

Thanks for that MR. What is your source?

MR, thanks. Leofric lived in Chester, Godiva's family lived between Leicester and Coventry. Her brothers took her to Chester for safety when Canute threw his weight about. Canute became king by force until 1035, so why did they both risk going back to Coventry, and why did we hear nothing since in history books? Puzzles me! Towns were few in number, and small when Leofric came in 1023, and one can argue that traffic jams, long lines of wagons bringing in fruits and veg to market, the hustle and bustle of ox-carts jostling against them, endless cavalcades of mounted men and women to attend meetings. No traffic jams, no town.

At 1086 (Domesday Book) Coventry had 69 households and was in the top 2% in settlement sizes. The average population of a settlement in that time was 150 people. Not sure what the average household size was but it would have been well above 2. Even if the monastery added an extra 20 monks in individual cells (huts), the place was small by modern standards. My country road has more houses than that. Our concept of what it was like is skewed by what Coventry became. I have a lot of trouble imagining what life, trade and even community would have been like in 1066.

Britain Express

Thanks MR, site now bookmarked. I wonder what their source was for that info?

Helen, hi I have little trouble of the life I lived in a strong rural urban life for 17 years, where horses walked through muddy bridal paths, where small farms still used the ancient three field system. Funnily enough Gutteridge tells us it was still the same in some parts of Coventry in the 19th century. You omit to say how many slaves were in the community at that time. I have spent nights in two monasteries and much more so feel I knew a lot of the system. What I was wanting to ask you, did that book on St Michael's mention that a special wall was built in St Mary's Guildhall, to hold a special woven mural from the Bayeux tapestry, because all parts of St Mary's was built by the Normans?

I could be wrong, but that bears uncanny resemblance to something I wrote about 20 years ago! Ahah.... just read the next few sections of that page.... it pretty much paraphrases the rest of my history page, and in the same order. The main difference is that I, at least, acknowledged all my sources at the foot of the page!

Morning Kaga. The 69 households included 7 of slaves but there would have been more in the other houses. How many people in total I don't know. Coventry is very mysterious the further back you try to go. The Domesday Book mentions Coventry but not at length. Other writings include it but mostly as a feature of somebody connected (eg Leofric). Some of the history was written well after the events and might be an accurate retelling of a verbal history, a copy from an earlier work or just made up. eg The different explanations for Coventry's name are all just plausible speculation. The St Michael's book mentions St Mary's Hall but not in detail. There are several books dedicated to the Hall and others that include it as part of the discussion about the city or archaeology. I can't offhand tell you which is best and it depends how much technical detail you want. As they know more about the hall, the more confusing it gets. Like St Michael's it wasn't all built at the same time and the earliest part, Caesar's Tower*, is supposed to date back to the castle, so definitely Norman. The rest was built in three main periods 1340, 1460 and the modern extensions like the Muniments Room in the 1890s onward. Those who were involved in 1340 were probably descended from the local Norman lords. Since this is Coventry's City of Culture year there should be a load of new books out, including ones about St Mary's Hall as they've done a lot of restoration/archaeology to get ready for it. * The Caesar's Tower we see today was extensively rebuilt after it was heavily damaged, almost destroyed during the war.

Rob. I keep telling you that you're considered a primary source! Technical reports reference you. And quite right in my opinion. Half the time I can remember some fact but not where I found it, it was here.

That's a kind and lovely thought Helen, thank you, but I only report on HC the best of what I can find from other people's "proper" books and papers. I do try to pick out a consensus from what appear to be the most accurate sources, so hopefully what I've published is mostly correct. Much the same can easily be said about the research you do on here, which is detailed and easy to understand. If you compiled a book, I'd certainly buy a copy!

Thanks for that again MR. An excellent piece I'd never read before. So Fox and Dugdale are your sources; who were their sources I wonder? Having studied History at university I was always taught to be very wary about where information originated, and what was the writer's agenda. Much of our history is pure myth based on the repetition of "false truths". Not that I'm saying you are making it up

Awww Rob, I was waiting for your book to come out. Belushi, in some ways more information was available from Coventry's records in Dugdale's time as a lot of records were destroyed in a fire at Birmingham in 1879. How genuine those records were is another matter. Some of the documents that purport to be evidence giving certain rights to St Mary's priory are now thought to be forgeries as they aren't old enough.... though they could just be copies of the originals There are very few truths about Coventry's earliest years but loads of theories. Even had Dugdale seen original documents, there's no proof that they went back as far as the real events. To throw another hat into the ring - there's another Coundon up in the northeast that derives from 'cow's hill' so perhaps Coventry was cow town? The question 'did Coventry exist before the convent' might be key to working out its derivation. That requires an archaeological discovery that I'm not sure the busy city could deliver. Who financed it? Who owned the land? Something for experts to try and work out. As more documents are digitised and translated, who knows? I've been looking at the Illustrated Bibles and Psalters for inspiration and I'll be honest, there was a lot more hunting unicorns with pet dragons than was strictly accurate, so anything else has to taken with a pinch of salt.

Why do we Coventry kids see Leofric as a good guy when we know he did not pay his workers enough to pay his tax, he had all this wealth that he is supposed to have given the church, but kept his workers at starvation point, sent his wife naked into the streets, over just a paltry few quid? Books also tell us he was a great friend of Cnut who was a heathen, pagan, who watched his men rape and kill nuns, wrecked Coventry. Neither did anything for Coventry. Dugdale wrote at least five centuries after things happened in the 11th century Warwickshire. Now in 1085 William I had a survey done called the Domesday Book. William had seen that two thousand odd Vikings had descended on Warwickshire and settled there, then he had brought another five thousand Normans to the Midlands. That increased the population by god knows how many - so how were they going to feed so many almost overnight? William's survey told him first, how many ploughs were in England, how many pigs the forests could breed, etc, what he needed to know. The first thing he did was to increase the arable land for crops by a third. Now, to me this was an act of a good general or king, who looked after the people he invaded. The same thing almost after WWII when, after beating the Germans, we reduced the size of our loaves by two ounces, to feed the Germans.