THE PALE AS ENGLISH-IRISH CONTACTS ZONE IN THE 12TH–16TH CENTURIES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17308/history/1995-5480/2026/1/64-68Keywords:
Middle Ages, Pale, social history, class statuses and hierarchies, ethnicity, identity, languageAbstract
Тhe aim of this study is to analyse the history of the Pale phenomenon within contexts of medieval Irish social history. The article demonstrates that 1) the Pale area became a centre of early English colonization in Ireland; 2) the English and Irish populations in Pale coexisted; 3) social characteristics of class, as well as languages, were the primary markers of identity of the Pale population; 4) the identity of the Pale inhabitants was not stable but changed gradually; 5) language was a marker of identity changes – descendants of the local aristocracy could be subject to Anglicization, while English settlers, interned in the marriage system, lost their English language and became Gaelic. The results of the study suggest that prescribed social and class identities were secondary in comparison with the ethnic markers of the medieval Pale population.
References
1. Ball F. E., Hamilton E. The parish of Taney : a history of Dundrum, near Dublin, and its neighbourhood. Dublin : Hodges and Figgis, 1895. 256 р.
2. The Irish Sections of Fynes Moryson's unpublished itinerary / ed. G. Kew. Dublin : IMC, 1998. 137 р.
3. Falkiner C. L. Illustrations of Irish history and topography, mainly of the 17th century. L. : Longmans, Green, & Co., 1904. 433 р.
4. Power G. Migration and Identity in Early Modern Ireland : the New English and the Pale community // Imagining Frontiers, Contesting Identities / eds. S. Ellis, L. Klusáková. Pisa : Edizioni Plus – Pisa University Press, 2007. P. 243–262.
5. Carey V. “Neither good English nor good Irish” : Bi-lingualism and identity formation in sixteenth-century Ireland // Political Ideology in Ireland, 1541–1641 / ed. H. Morgan. Dublin : Four Courts Press, 1999. P. 45–61.
6. Jeff eries H. A. The Early Tudor Reformations in the Irish Pale // The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 2001. Vol. 52, No 1. P. 34–62.
7. Connolly S. J. Contested Island : Ireland 1460–1630. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2007. 426 р.
8. The Irish Sections of Fynes Moryson's unpublished itinerary / ed. G. Kew. Dublin : IMC, 1998. 137 р.
9. Jeff eries H. A. Reformations Compared : Religious Transformations across Early Modern Europe. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2024. 292 р.
