What is the origin of the term beyond the pale?

There is a Wiki which claims it refers to the Irish Pale, but someone else told me that the phrase predates this usage.

“Pale” is an old word for a stake in the ground marking a boundary. See “impale,” which means to be pierced with a stake.

So to be “beyond the pale” means to be beyond a commonly accepted boundary.

Find that “someone else” & ask for details. I think the phrase does refer to the Irish Pale–more properly, the English Pale that protected them from the Wild Irish.

There was also a Russian Pale, but it came later.

Not according to the OED. The online version dates the phrase ‘beyond the pale’ only back to 1720. The phrase ‘the Pale’, or rather ‘the English Pale’, dates back to the fifteenth century, when it was used for the English territories at Calais. It was later used in the sixteenth century for the equivalent territories in Ireland and in Scotland.

Not that this means that the later usage derives from the earlier one.

I read that the Caspian Gates were thought to be the last obstacle to the Mongols entering Europe, and that the Mongolian invasions were likened to the mythical Gog and Magog. The area west of the Caspian Gates was thought of as “beyond the pale”, Pale being the area of Russia, beyond which the Mongols would come and invade.

(Cite – I think I read it somewhere in “The Silk Road” by Franck and Brownstone, but I cannot find the page right now.)

p.s. – This has some interesting info although it doesn’t specifically reference Pale.

First, you have to define just what “sense” of “beyond the pale” you are after.
The meaning that APB linked to is the sense of a figurative meaning of

.

There are many other uses of the phrase in the OED, and most of them go back to the 1400s or earlier.

Wordorigins.orgpale, beyond the
Dave Wilton, Thursday, April 05, 2007
The word pale dates to the 14th century and comes to us from the Latin palus, or stake, via French. The original English meaning was the same as in Latin, a stake, particularly one used to make a fence or border marker. You can still find this sense in the modern paling fence or palisade. From Wycliffe’s c.1382 translation of Ecclesiastes:

In þe wallis of it he is picching a pale.
(In the walls of it he is building a pale.)

From the literal sense of a fence or boundary line, the metaphorical sense of boundary or limit developed by the 15th century. From The Brut, or the Chronicles of England, c.1450:

Al þe cuntre þat was of þe Englisshe pale shuld come and bring…thaire goodes, and breke doun theire houses.
(All the country that was of the English pale should come and bring…their goods, and break down their houses.)

By the late 15th century, the word was also being used metaphorically to mean a domain or field of knowledge, influence, etc. From Caxton’s 1483 translation of Voragine’s The Golden Legende:

The abbote…and xxi monkes…went for to dwelle in deserte for to kepe more straytelye the professyon of theyr pale.
(The abbot…and 21 monks…went for to dwell in the desert for the keep more straightly the profession of their pale.)

The phrase beyond the pale makes its appearance in the 17th century. From John Harrington’s 1657 poem The History of Polindor and Flostella:

Both Dove-like roved forth beyond the pale To planted Myrtle-walk.

Over the centuries, various specific uses of pale to mean a specific region have been used. It has been used to refer to the regions of Ireland ruled by the English (16th century) or to the areas of Russia where Jews were permitted to settle (19th century). The phrase beyond the pale is not from any of these specific senses, but rather from the general one of boundary or limit.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd Edition)

Years ago in a conservative essay I read that it derived from the free Irish beyond the pale, the fence, that the British built to protect themselves from the Irish they couldn’t conquer. Thus to the liberals, the conservatives and their love of freedom, are always ‘‘beyond the pale’’. It is such a good story, I may refuse to accept and facts anybody digs up. After all, how many people are part of SD and will know the true story?

There is too much of brutal gangs of facts raping lovely young theories.

Spoken like a true lover of freedom!

"The great tragedy of Science: the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact” - Thomas Huxley