Catchpole is a surname and type of tax collector in medieval England.
It is a combination of Old English (cace-, catch) and medieval Latin (pullus, a chick) and derives from the idea that people who owed tax were as difficult to catch as farmyard hens.
At that time, tax-gathering was contracted out in a system called tax farming.
The catchpole paid a lump sum for authority to collect taxes from a given area or population, and was then able to keep whatever he could, using almost any method.
He was mainly responsible for collecting debts, using methods hardly more restrained than those of his tax gathering forebears.