“He’s out there . . . beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct.” This line from the Apocalypse Now movie describes Colonel Kurtz’s character who has gone rogue during desperate times.
The Meaning of the Phrase
The colloquial phrase, “beyond the pale” means to pass outside the boundaries of acceptable social behavior. It derives from the Latin word palus which means “stake” like those used for fencing in cattle during the Norman conquest of Ireland in the fourteenth century.
The Origin of the Phrase
By the fourteenth century, the Norman invasion of Ireland had bogged down. The Normans, who ruled England since 1066, sent settlers to conquer and settle in Irish lands. Instead of enforcing English law and customs on the native people, many Normans had disappeared into Irish culture. Meanwhile, those settlers who did not assimilate huddled together in four counties, Dublin, Kildare, Louth, and Meath to the east.
The English crown considered these shires as “obedient” and under their control. This created not only a legal perimeter but a physical boundary line. Representatives marked the borders of the king’s kingdom in Ireland with wooden fence posts dug into the ground.
Called “pales”, after the Latin word for “stake”, this fortified fence-line evolved over the centuries into a ditch ten feet deep with eight-foot banks climbing on either side and surrounded by thick thorn hedges.
Although the English didn’t intend this fortification as an impenetrable rampart, it served its purpose by discouraging Irish raiders from spiriting away English cattle across the border. Those who lived inside the Pale dwelt under the protection of the English crown. Once you stepped outside the barrier, you were “beyond the pale”, in a wild land where English law and authority did not exist.
These English settlers resisted assimilation into Irish culture with harsh laws that forbid intermarriage with the Irish or speaking the Gaelic language. They banned local wool mantles worn by Irish peasants and ordered cloaks made from English wool. Over time, English influence and law spread beyond the pale to every corner of the Irish island.
Many of these rugged people later emigrated to the colonies in America during the eighteenth century where they tended to live in rural, wild, and isolated places in mountains and valleys with only a thin veil of law and authority. Today, the Irish turf still carries traces of the massive Pale that existed both as a political entity and a physical barrier.
What the Phrase Means Today
Today, the phrase “beyond the pale” still describes those who deviate from normal authority and go beyond existing social or cultural boundaries to rogue territories beyond.
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