CRAFTWORKGaelic areas levied “noctials,” something very like
coyne and livery: essentially the compulsory hospital-
ity demanded of their tenants and clergy.
The word “coyne,” sometimes rendered “coign,” dates
to post-Norman times and is derived from the Gaelic
words for billeting and quartering, coinnemandcoin-
nmed. An earlier term, congbáil, used in the Brehon Law
texts and meaning entertainment or maintenance, may
provide its pre-Norman root. Meiconia, or miconia, was
most likely a Hiberno-Latin derivate of coinnmed,in use
by the late fifteenth century. Sorthan, or “sorren,” was
an equivalent term used in parts of Munster. “Livery”
referred to the provision of free food and bedding for a
lord’s cavalry (“horsemen”) and fodder and stabling for
his horses and their grooms, known as “horseboys.”
Already endemic across Gaelic Ireland, coyne and
livery spread into the lands of the “Englishry” in the
course of the fourteenth century, as the military author-
ity of the royal administration in Dublin declined and
responsibility for the defense of outlying colonial
regions was increasingly devolved to local lords and
landowners. The chronology of its adoption is difficult
to determine exactly. Even in the late thirteenth century
the marcher lords of the colony were increasingly pre-
disposed to the forced requisition of food and lodging
by their private armies through purveyance. As the
fourteenth century progressed and military arrange-
ments evolved, at some point purveyance began to
merge with coyne and livery, which began to replace
it—presumably because it was more flexible and better-
suited to the defense of ethnically mixed lordships
populated by Gaelic as well as Anglo-Irish inhabitants
(already the rank and file of the private armies com-
prised mainly Gaelic soldiers). By the early fifteenth
century, coyne was in general use in all of the main
Anglo-Irish territories in the south and east of the
country. Its widespread imposition was probably the
main reason for the growing regional dominance of
the Butler earls of Ormond and the Fitzgerald earls of
Kildare and Desmond.
Coyne was notoriously oppressive. For lesser land-
owners and tenants in many parts of the country, it was
understandably difficult to refuse hospitality to a lord
and his men. The line between hospitality given vol-
untarily and hospitality taken compulsorily was a thin
one, and, of course, repeated usage in time created the
legal basis for its becoming a customary exaction. In
some areas, particularly the Ormond territories in Kilk-
enny and Tipperary, the lord’s right to coyne and livery
was usually controlled to some extent by his greater
need to retain the support of the local gentry and to
govern by consensus. Such constraints did not always
apply elsewhere. Coyne was an especially heavy bur-
den in the Desmond lordship, imposed as often as once
a fortnight on the earls’ subjects, many of whom were
reduced to subsistence levels of existence as a result.
Especially onerous was the requirement of some lords
that coyne and livery be offered not just to them and
their troops, but “without limitation” to their friends
and followers also. Efforts to regularize coyne by
transmuting its exaction into a money charge some-
times backfired, if the soldiers themselves were
allowed to collect what was due. Despite such problems,
however, the imposition of coyne and livery brought
more advantages than disadvantages for the lords. In
particular, its arbitrary nature meant that additional
forces could be hired and maintained at short notice.
In the sixteenth century, as the English crown reas-
serted its power, measures were taken to abolish coyne
and livery across the island. Gradually it was abandoned,
beginning with the Ormond lordship in the 1560s, and by
the early seventeenth century it had entirely disappeared.
DAVID EDWARDSReferences and Further Reading
Edwards, David. The Ormond Lordship in County Kilkenny, 1515–
1642: The Rise and Fall of Butler Feudal Power. Dublin: 2003.
Empey, C. A., and Katharine Simms. “The Ordinances of the
White Earl and the Problem of Coign in the Later Middle
Ages.” PRIA 75 C (1975), 161–187.
Hore, Herbert, and James Graves. The Social State of South-
East Ireland in the Sixteenth Century. Dublin: RHAAI, 1870.
Nicholls, Kenneth. Gaelic and Gaelicized Ireland in the Middle
Ages, 2nd ed. Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2003.
Nicholls, Kenneth. “Gaelic Society and Economy in the High
Middle Ages.” In New History of Ireland, II: Medieval
Ireland, 1169–1534, edited byArt Cosgrove. Oxford:
ClarendonPress, 1987.
Simms, Katharine. “Guesting and Feasting in Gaelic Ireland.”
Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 108
(1978), 67–100.
See alsoArmies; Coshering; Entertainment;
Gaelicization; Military Service, Gaelic; Society,
Functioning of GaelicCRAFTWORK
As in any preindustrial society, a wide range of crafts
provided the necessities of life in medieval Ireland.
Such crafts can be studied through documentary and
archaeological evidence—ideally through a synthe-
sis of both—but are particularly prominent in archae-
ological work. Excavation of rural (secular and
ecclesiastical) and urban sites has produced vast
amounts of evidence for all aspects of crafts, from
gathering and processing of raw materials to the use
and disposal of finished products. Major advances in
understanding have been made, especially in terms
of technical processes and patterns of distribution
and trade. Less fully understood are the organization
and scale of crafts and the role of professional specialists,