The Phrase Finder defines the term as meaning “In disorderly confusion; with reckless haste.” Another term used is to describe “…people charging about like chickens with their heads cut off.” Sir Thomas North translated “Plutarch’s Lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes,” a passage that indicated “disordered confusion.”  “He entered amongst them that fled their Campe pelmel, or hand overheade.” The expression is derived directly from the French. “Pel may derive from the Old French pesle, meaning to run or bolt.”