Dennis Triplett, age 16, of Montgomery, Ala., for his question:

WHO WAS LADY GODIVA?

Lady Godiva was an Anglo Saxon noblewoman who lived from about 1040 to about 1080. She was the wife of Leofric, Earl of Marcia and is known to have persuaded her husband to found monasteries at Coventry and Stow.

According to the legend, Lady Godiva 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. All the people were warned not to look at her as she made the ride.

Only one person, the legend says, disobeyed Lady Godiva's 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 quoted from earlier writers by the English chronicler Roger of Wendover in "Flores Historriarum," or "Flowers of the Historians," in 1236.

A festival in honor of Lady Godiva was instituted as a part of Coventry Fair in 1678.

Lady Godiva's name is sometimes spelled Godgifu.