sent to Coventry - why there?

[pearl1012]

I’ve been rereading some of the books I enjoyed when I was younger, among them the ‘Malory Towers’ series by Enid Blyton. They’re about a girls’ boarding school in Cornwall, and were written in the late 1940s. I was wondering about one phrase that is used…when the girls wish to punish one of their number, who is being particularly beastly, they ‘send her to Coventry’ - that is, they don’t speak to her. Does anyone know why Coventry? Is it an especially quiet place? Thanks.

[Johnny_L.A]

From this site:

From Bill McCord: “As a native of that city I am often asked for the origin of the phrase to be sent to Coventry.”

It is very probable that the Warwickshire city is the source of this expression for someone who has been ostracised. I say that with some care because there are at least two theories about where it came from. All of them do point to your native city, but none of them can be substantiated. The idiom is first recorded in 1765, but it is generally taken to refer to events during the English Civil Wars of the 1640s between forces loyal to the King and those loyal to Parliament.

The first appearance of the phrase is in 1647, in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England by Edward Hyde, First Earl of Clarendon, though the author is using the phrase in a literal, not a figurative sense. He says that Royalist troops who were captured in Birmingham (then a small town, not the great city that grew up later on the back of the Industrial Revolution) were taken for security to Coventry, a Parliamentarian stronghold. Understandably, they were not welcome. Another story, undated but usually taken to refer to events of a similar period, is that Coventry was strongly opposed to having troops billeted on townspeople, and that soldiers sent there were ostracised by the local population.

Take your pick. My own feeling is that neither is convincing, not least because of the century-long gap between Civil War events and the first appearance of the idiom—not impossible, though.

[brainfizz]

there are two common theories, neither of which, unfortunately, can be verified. The first traces the phrase to the English Civil War, which began in 1642 and pitted the Royalist forces of King Charles I against the Parliamentarian armies of Oliver Cromwell. Coventry, a Parliamentarian stronghold, is said to have been used to house hundreds of Royalist prisoners captured by Cromwell’s forces. A Royalist in Coventry would, no doubt, have been very unpopular, so “to be sent to Coventry” came to be a popular saying meaning “to be ostracized.” It has also been suggested that Coventry was used as a place of execution during the same period, in which case “to be sent to Coventry” signaled a fate somewhat worse than having no one to talk to.

Another theory holds that the townsfolk of Coventry disliked soldiers so much that to be posted to the garrison there was a guarantee of social isolation, and thus much feared by soldiers.

[owlstretchingtime]

Have you ever BEEN to Coventry? Crikey, it as rough as a bear’s arse!

[MC_Master_of_Ceremonies]

If I didn’t like someone Conventry is the town I’d send them to.