Sportula
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
or SPORTELLA. A dole or largess, either of meat or money, given by princes or great men to the poor. It was properly the pannier or basket in which the meat was brought, or with which the poor went to beg it, thence the word was transferred to the meat itself, and thence to money sometimes given in lieu of it. Bnc. Lond.