were so tainted by Gaelic alliances and customs as to
arouse the suspicion of the Palesmen; their attempts to
impose coyne and livery within the Pale were a frequent
cause of discontent. Only the Anglo-Irish magnates
could ensure the protection of the Pale, while in return
the support of the Palesmen was a prize the magnates
could not afford to ignore. But for all that, relations
between the two groups were often uncertain.
The renewed vigor of Tudor policies led to the
breakdown of the medieval concept of the frontier in
Ireland, although in the 1540s commentators were
writing of “the English Pale in Scotland,” and the
phrase “beyond the Pale” remains part of the English
language to this day.
JAMES MOYNES
References and Further Reading
Cosgrove, A., ed. A New History of Ireland. II Medieval Ireland.
Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.
Devitt, M. “The Ramparts of the Pale at Clongowes Wood.”
Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society3 (1899–1902):
284–288.
Ellis, S.G. Ireland in the Age of the Tudors 1447–1603: English
Expansion and the End of Gaelic Rule. London: Longman,
1998.
———Tudor Frontiers and Noble Power: The Making of the
British State. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995.
———Reform and Revival: English Government in Ireland,
1470–1534.London: The Royal Historical Society, 1986.
Empey, C.A. and Simms, K. “The Ordinances of the White Earl
and the Problem of Coign in the Later Middle Ages.” Pro-
ceedings of the Royal Irish Academy75 (1975): sect. C.
Gorman, V. “Richard, Duke of York, and the Development of
an Irish Faction.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy
85 (1985): sect. C, 169–179.
Lydon, J.F. The Lordship of Ireland in the Middle Ages. 2d ed.
Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003.
Lyons, M.A. Church and Society in County Kildare, c. 1480–1547.
Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000.
Manning, C. “Excavations at Kilteel Church, Co. Kildare.”
Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society 16
(1981–1982):173–229.
Matthew, E. “The Financing of the Lordship of Ireland under
Henry V and Henry VI.” InProperty and Politics: Essays in
Later Medieval English History, edited by A.J. Pollard,
97–115. Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1984.
Otway-Ruthven, A.J. A History of Medieval Ireland. 2d ed.
London: Benn, 1980.
See alsoDublin; Kildare; Mide; Tower Houses
PALLADIUS
In 431 (according to Prosper of Aquitaine, Chronicle,
S.A.) Pope Celestine I dispatched the newly-ordained
Palladius as “first bishop to the Irish believing in
Christ” (primus episcopus ad Scottos in Christum cre-
dentes). Neither Palladius nor his mission is mentioned
in official Roman sources, and references to Palladius
in later Irish documents derive either from the Chron-
icleor from Book I cap. 13 of Bede’s Ecclesiastical
History of the English People(731), who also found
the information in Prosper. Prosper appears to allude
again to the mission of Palladius in his polemical tract
Contra Collatorem(written in the later 430s). He refers
to Celestine’s having made Britain (“the Roman
island”) Catholic, while making Ireland (“the barba-
rous island”) Christian. This was in reference, in the
first instance, to an earlier episode, in 429, when
Celestine dispatched Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, to
Britain in order to combat a recent recrudescence of
the heresy known as Pelagianism. That mission (again
according to Prosper) had been undertaken at the insti-
gation of a deacon named Palladius, who is undoubt-
edly identical with the man of that name sent to Ireland
in 431. It is generally assumed that the mission to
Ireland in 431 followed on from the one to Britain in
429, on the basis that the ecclesiastical authorities in
Rome would probably have feared for the orthodoxy
of any fledgling Christian community in Ireland
because of its geographical proximity to the compro-
mised Christians of Britain. It is assumed also that
Palladius was, by whatever means, familiar with the
situation in Ireland.
Nothing more was known about Palladius himself
until a recent discovery that casts new light on his
youthful years, especially those apparently spent in
Rome studying law circa 417, following which he
made a “conversion” to radical Christianity. According
to this new theory, Palladius has been proposed as the
previously unidentified author of a group of radical
Christian-socialist tracts known to scholars as the
“Caspari Letters” (after their first editor, Carl Paul
Caspari), a collection with strong links to Pelagius and
his circle and composed probably around 417. The
fierce denunciation of wealth and property in the letters
suggests that their author was a recent (and relatively
youthful) convert to Pelagian views. We can only spec-
ulate as to whether or not those views find a reflection
in later Irish Christianity.
Though some Irish writers of the late-seventh cen-
tury maintained that Palladius’s mission was either not
successful, or else that he abandoned the missionary
effort, there is a general consensus amongst historians
of today that he did reach Ireland, presumably with a
party of helpers, and established his mission probably
in the area around the present-day County Meath. The
place names Dunshaughlin and Killossy/Killashee are
understood to derive from the Irish dún“fort”
+
Secundinus and cell “church”
+Auxilius respectively
(in their Irish forms Sechnall and Ausille), denoting
early foundations by continental missionaries proba-
bly associated with Palladius. No church dedicated to
Palladius, however, has survived.PALE, THE