Today’s word of the day, courtesy of the Dictionary Project (https://www.dictionaryproject.org/), is farce. Farce, pronounced / fɑrs /, is a noun that means “a light, humorous play in which the plot depends upon a skillfully exploited situation rather than upon the development of character,” or “humor of the type displayed in such works,” or “foolish show; mockery; a ridiculous sham” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/farce). Samuel Johnson, in his 1755 Dictionary, defines it thus: “A dramatick representation written without regularity, and stuffed with wild and ludicrous conceits” (https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=farce).

There is also a transitive verb farce, which means “to season (a speech or composition), especially with witty material” or “Obsolete. to stuff; cram” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/farce). Johnson says, “To stuff; to fill with mingled ingredients” or “To extend; to swell out” (https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=farce). Now, I have never heard the word used as a verb in this way, and I have never heard the definition of “to stuff,” so this meaning came as a surprise to me. Perhaps there is something in the etymology that will explain this.

Etymonline.com says that the noun farce entered the English language in the “late 14c., ‘force-meat, stuffing;’ 1520s, in the dramatic sense ‘ludicrous satire; low comedy,’ from French farce ‘comic interlude in a mystery play’ (16c.), literally ‘stuffing,’ from Old French farcir ‘to stuff,’ (13c.), from Latin farcire ‘to stuff, cram,’ which is of uncertain origin, perhaps from PIE *bhrekw- ‘to cram together,’ and thus related to frequens ‘crowded.’

… for a farce is that in poetry which grotesque is in a picture. The persons and action of a farce are all unnatural, and the manners false, that is, inconsisting with the characters of mankind. [Dryden, ‘A Parallel of Poetry and Painting’]

According to OED and other sources, the pseudo-Latin farsia was applied 13c. in France and England to praise phrases inserted into liturgical formulae (for example between kyrie and eleison) at the principal festivals, then in Old French farce was extended to the impromptu buffoonery among actors that was a feature of religious stage plays. Generalized sense of ‘a ridiculous sham’ is from 1690s in English” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=farce). So we have a word which experienced broadening or generalization both before and after it entered the language.

Merriam-Webster gives the best explanation: “From Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, many of us are familiar with farce in its dramatic sense. However, when farce first appeared in English, it had to do with cookery, not comedy. In the 14th century, English adopted farce from Middle French with its original meaning of ‘forcemeat’—that is, a highly seasoned, minced meat or fish often served as a stuffing. In the 16th century, English imported the word again, this time to refer to a kind of knockabout comedy already popular in France. French farce had its origins in the 13th-century practice of stuffing Latin church texts with explanatory phrases. By the 15th century, a similar practice of inserting unscripted buffoonery into religious plays had arisen. Such farces—which included clowning, acrobatics, reversal of social roles, and indecency—soon developed into a distinct dramatic genre and spread rapidly in various forms throughout Europe” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/farce). So perhaps the verb form, related to cooking, meaning to stuff meat into a dish, was borrowed first, and then the word was borrowed again, this time in the noun form and referring to a type of comedy.

According to On This Day, on this date in 1040, “Lady Godiva rides naked on horseback through Coventry, according to legend, to persuade her husband, the Earl of Mercia, to lower taxes” (https://www.onthisday.com/events/july/10). Or, at least, that’s the story we’ve all heard.

There actually was a Lady Godiva. She lived at the end of the Anglo-Saxon period in what is now England, dying sometime between 1066 and 1086 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Godiva). She was married to “Leofric, Earl of Mercia. They had nine children; one son was Ælfgar. Godiva’s name occurs in charters and the Domesday survey, though the spelling varies. The Old English name Godgifu or Godgyfu meant ‘gift of God’; ‘Godiva’ was the name’s Latinised form. Since the name was a popular one, there are contemporaries of the same name” (ibid.).

“Both Leofric and Godiva were generous benefactors to religious houses. In 1043, Leofric founded and endowed a Benedictine monastery at Coventry on the site of a nunnery destroyed by the Danes in 1016. Writing in the 13th century, Roger of Wendover credits Godiva as the persuasive force behind this act of generosity…. Both Godiva and her husband were among the most munificent of the several large Anglo-Saxon donors of the last decades before the Norman Conquest; the early Norman bishops made short work of their gifts, carrying them off to Normandy or melting them down for bullion. Nevertheless, the memory of Godiva and Leofric survived during the Norman reign and in 1122 their names were commemorated in the mortuary roll of Saint Vitalis of Savigny” (ibid.).

There is relatively frequent mention of Godiva and Leofric in the period after the Conquest despite the fact that they were on the losing side. But there is no mention of the famous ride until the 13^th century, 200 or so years later. The story first appears “in the Flores Historiarum and the adaptation of it by Roger of Wendover” (ibid.).

“According to the typical version of the story, Lady Godiva took pity on the people of Coventry, who were suffering grievously under her husband’s oppressive taxation. Lady Godiva appealed again and again to her husband, who obstinately refused to lower the taxes. At last, weary of her repeated requests, he said he would grant her request if she would strip naked and ride on a horse through the streets of the town. Lady Godiva took him at his word, and after issuing a proclamation that all persons should stay indoors and shut their windows, she rode through the town, clothed only in her long hair. Just one person in the town, a tailor ever afterwards known as ‘Peeping Tom’, disobeyed her proclamation in what is the most famous instance of voyeurism. In most versions of the story, Tom is struck blind or dead for his transgression” (ibid.).

The story about Lady Godiva has survived, even thought of as a true story by many. But from an historical perspective it’s a farce. No woman in 1040 England would have acquiesced to such a request. In that age women generally wore an undergarment, a long-sleeved, full-length under dress, and she probably wore it all the time. And while the ending of the story of Peeping Tom, that he was killed, seems plausible on the face of it (Leofric would have made sure of that), Leofrice would never have allowed his wife to be put into that compromising position.

In other words, the story is a farce, an impossibility. But farce is often used as a kind of political theater. And that, in essence, is what the story of Lady Godiva is, the story of a Lady who has compassion for the poor because they are overtaxed by the government. We see a similar kind of theater in the story of Robin Hood, who robbed from the government (Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham) and gave to the poor, specifically the people who had to pay taxes. Even today we have a prurient interest in the story of Lady Godiva (we all, perhaps, want to be Peeping Tom), but she is a hero not for riding naked but for standing up against the government for its oppressive taxes.

Today’s image is an 1897 painting of Lady Godiva by John Collier, which is at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum and is in the Public Domain (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89067793). As lovely as the painting is, it, too, is a bit of a farce for the way she is sitting on the horse and the somewhat late medieval trappings of the horse.