alms-fee

From Old English ælmes-feoh, from ælmesse (“alms”) + feoh (“money”). See fee.

alms-fee (plural alms-fees)

1. (historical) An annual tax of one penny on every hearth, collected in England and Ireland and sent to Rome, from the beginning of the tenth century until it was abolished by Henry VIII.

• Rome-scot
• Rome-fee
• Peter's pence

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “alms-fee”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• females