coyne and livery

In Irish history, a general term employed by English commentators to cover the various feudal and arbitrary exactions imposed by Gaelic Irish and Anglo-Irish lords in late-medieval and 16th-century Ireland, particularly in respect of the billeting of military forces. Attempts to abolish coyne and livery became a central concern of Tudor government in Ireland, but the failure of the strategies adopted towards that end, notably composition (commutation of feudal military dues), became a principal cause of the rebellions of the late Elizabethan era.

A fusion of the Irish coinmheadh, ‘to keep; give hospitality’, with the English ‘livery’, the obligation to care for the lords' horses, the term symbolized the degree to which both ethnic groups in Ireland had become united in their common exploitation of arbitrary taxes.