We get this term from 11th-century England and Lady Godiva's legendary horse ride through the streets of Coventry in 1040.

According to the legend, a Saxon lady by the name of Godiva rode naked through the streets of Coventry to get her husband to lift an oppressive tax he had imposed on his tenants. The story is that she was the beautiful wife of Leofric, earl of Mercia and Lord of Coventry. The people of that city were suffering grievously under the earl's oppressive taxation, and this caused Lady Godiva to make several appeals to her husband to remove the tax. Every time he refused she would ask and ask again. At last, weary of her begging, he said he would grant her request if she would ride naked through the streets of the town. Lady Godiva took him at his word, and after issuing a request that all persons should keep within doors and shut their windows, she rode through, clothed only in her long hair. One person disobeyed her request, a tailor by the name of Tom. He bored a hole in his shutters so that he could see the naked Lady Godiva pass. He was said to have been struck blind the instant he gazed upon her nakedness. Her husband kept his word and abolished the obnoxious taxes, and Tom the tailor became known as Peeping Tom.

Although the tale above is, of course, a legend, there was actually a historical figure by the name of Godiva. She was the wife of Leofric (968–1057), earl of Mercia.