CAGOTS, a people found in the Basque provinces, Beam, Gascony and Brittany, first mentioned in 1288. In the 16th cen tury they had many names, Cagots, Gahets, Gafets in France; Agotes, Gafos in Spain; and Cacons, Cahets, Caqueux and Ca quins in Brittany. During the middle ages they were shunned and hated; were allotted separate quarters in towns, called cagoteries, and lived in wretched huts in the country distinct from the vil lages. Excluded from all political and social rights, they were only allowed to enter a church by a special door, and during the service a rail separated them from the other worshippers. Either they were altogether forbidden to partake of the sacrament, or the holy wafer was handed to them on the end of a stick, while a receptacle for holy water was reserved for their exclusive use. They were compelled to wear a distinctive dress, and so pestilential was their touch considered that it was a crime for them to walk the corn mon road barefooted. The only trades allowed them were those of butcher and carpenter, and their ordinary occupation was wood cutting. Their language is merely a corrupt form of that spoken around them.
The origin of the Cagots is undecided. Teutonic descent is sug gested by their fair complexions and blue eyes. Littre defines them as "a people of the Pyrenees affected with a kind of cretin ism." The old mss. call them Chretiens or Chrestians, and from this it has been argued that they were Visigoths who originally lived as Christians among the Gascon pagans. A far more prob able explanation of this name is to be found in the fact that in mediaeval times all lepers were known as pauperes Christi, and that these Cagots were affected in the middle ages with a condi tion closely resembling leprosy. Thus would arise the confusion between Christians and Cretins. To-day their descendants are not more subject to goitre and cretinism than those dwelling around them, and are recognized by tradition and not by features or physi cal degeneracy. It was not until the French Revolution that any steps were taken to ameliorate their lot, but to-day they have ceased to form a separate class.
See Francisque Michel, Histoire des races maudites de France et d'Espagne (1846) ; Bulletins de la societe anthropologique (i861, 1867, 1868, 1871) ; Annales medico-psychologiques (Jan. 1867) ; Paul Raymond, Moeurs bearnaises (Pau, 1872) ; V. de Rochas, Les Parias de France et d'Espagne (1877) ; J. Hack Tuke, Jour. Anthropological Institute (vol. ix., 188o).