Godfrey of Bouillon

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

leader of the first crusade, son of Eustace II., Count of Boulogne; born near Nivelles, in 1061. He distinguished himself while fighting for the Emperor Henry IV. in Germany and Italy, and was made Duke of Bouillon. In order to expiate his sin of fighting against the Pope, he took the cross for the Holy Land in 1095, and led 80,000 men to the East by way of Constantinople. On May 1, 1097, they crossed the Bosporus, and began their march on Nice (Nicæa), which they took in June. In July the way to Syria was opened by the victory of Dorylæum (Eski Shehr), in Phrygia, and before the end of 1097 the crusaders enamped before Antioch. The town of Antioch fell into their hands in 1098, and in the following year Godfrey took Jerusalem itself, after five weeks' siege. The leaders of the army elected him king of the city and the territory; but Godfrey would not wear a crown in the place where Christ was crowned with thorns; and contented himself with the title of Duke and Guardian of the Holy Sepulcher. The defeat of the Egyptians at Ascalon placed him in possession of all the Holy Land, excepting two or three places. Godfrey now turned his attention to the organization of his newly established government, and promulgated a code of feudal laws called the Assize of Jerusalem. Godfrey was a favorite subject of medieval poetry, and is the central figure of Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered." He died in Jerusalem, July 18, 1100. GODIVA (gō-dī'vä) the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lord of Coventry in the reign of Edward the Confessor. Tradition says that, in 1040, she rode on her palfrey naked through the town of Coventry on her husband's promise that, if she would do so he would relieve the inhabitants of certain exactions which bore heavily on them. She had first proclaimed that no one should leave his house before noon, that all windows and other apertures in the houses should be closed, and that no one should even look out till noon was past. Only one person, "Peeping Tom," the story says, attempted to look out, and he was immediately struck blind. A yearly pageant, in which a young woman enacted the part of Godiva, was long kept up at Coventry, and still occasionally takes place. Tennyson based one of his delightful poems on this incident.