The Cagots were part of the population rejected for reasons still relatively mysterious. Those constituted an atypical phenomenon as much as private individual. They were with the wire of the centuries victims of a kind of racism popular, strongly anchored locally, generally condemned by the clergy on the one hand since the canting hypocrites were Christian, and by the aristocracy which had good game to condemn excesses of the churls on whom drudgeries and taxes weighed of which the canting hypocrites were free, being Paria S put at the round of applause of the company. Their fate indeed can be compared only with that of the Intouchable S of India.

The phenomenon of the Canting hypocrites relates to especially the South-west of France (Gascogne, Basque Country, Pyrenean valleys) and the North of Spain (Navarre, Aragon). According to the places and the times, the Canting hypocrites are called also Chrestians or Crestias (before XVIe century), Gézitains (starting from XVIe century), Gahets (Bordeaux, Agenais, Landes), Agots (Basque Country), Capots (Armagnac).

Designation

The Canting hypocrites are bet widespread with the Middle Ages on both sides the Pyrenees, that the superstition made look like objects of contempt and horror.

One of the other names very much used for the Canting hypocrites is “Crestias”, “Chrestia” or “Christianus”; it is synonymous in Béarn board the “leprous one” and it appears in the texts about the year 1300. The Lèpre indicates with the Moyen-âge various diseases: red leprosy is almost always mortal; white leprosy or leprosy tubercular patient present of the similar signs, but can be stabilized. All these patients inspire the fear of the contagion and are isolated out of the villages.

The term of Chrestians designated the Christians ariens, of religion arianist, religion adopted by the Lombards, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. Initially conquerors, these people are then overcome by the Francs and it is possible that their descendants took refuge far from the cities and mixed with the leprous one. In the old texts, christianus indissociable of leprosus and is even used in its place.

The Canting hypocrites are also called “Giézitains”, “Gésitains”, “Gésites” in reference to the biblical character Guéhazi (of which the Hebrew name is not without pointing out Guéhenne), servant of Elisee, leprous because of its cupidity. The Old Testament, (2 Kings, chapter 5), tells how leprosy was supposed to be propagated by clothing, but also by moral fault.

They are named, in addition to the already quoted names, Gafets or Gaffets , Agotas , and in Bigorre Graouès or Cascarrots . They many with Bordeaux and are called Ladres or Gahetz . One finds also their trace in Anjou under the names of Capots , or Gens of the Marshes , and in Brittany: Caqueux , Caquins or Caquous . According to an assumption, the term of canting hypocrite could also come from “ edges goth ”: “dogs of Ghoth” at the 5th century. It was supposed that they were the remainders of old the Visigoth S, which had the Aquitaine a long time: from there would have come to them the abusive name Canting hypocrites (caas goths: dogs goths), which would have been given to them by overcome. However, the term of canting hypocrite appeared about 1550, which makes this assumption rather not very credible. This name also presents an analogy with the Greek word “ cacos ” which means “bad”, near to the Breton word “caqueux” of the same significance, but probably more simply of low-Latin “ cagare ”. The etymology remains rather dubious about it.

The chronicles often indicate them still by the denominations of Caqueux , Cacous , Capos , Gaffos , terms of contempts which meant leprous - they were believed indeed reached this horrible disease. They were called also Canards , because they were to carry on their clothes a duck leg to be made recognize.

It should be noted that in certain texts of XVIe, the term canting hypocrite and his equivalents are employed like synonyms of " lépreux". Until the middle of the XXe century, canting hypocrite , used like an insult, meant " as well; idiot of the village" , " bigot" or " goitreux".

Geographical extension and various names given to the canting hypocrites

They were present in all Europe until the end of the 17th century, but particularly in the the Pyrenees, both in France and in Spain, mainly in Béarn and Navarre, in all the Basque Country and the Asturies, in Guyenne and Gascogne.

Some historical reference marks

The phenomenon that the canting hypocrites represented seems to have taken birth about the year Thousand to grow blurred as from the 17th century and to finish at the 19th century, very gradually.

Chronology of the known facts:

• 733 : The fugitive ones of the army of the Arab general Abderrahman overcome in Poitiers, are reduced by the Campons between the river Adour and the Saint-Paul Priory. The survivors perhaps constituted the first colony of the “Canting hypocrites”.

• 1288 : first mention of the term of Canting hypocrite.
• 1514 : Agots in Navarre are the first to complain about their fate to the pope Leon X.
• 1580 : the Canting hypocrites, with the agreement of the Consuls and the Vice-chancellor, build themselves their own vault dedicated to Saint Sebastien in the valley of Campan.
• 1691 : violent one sets fire to in the valley of Campan. The church is destroyed and will be given in state, as in 1597, by the Canting hypocrites.
• 1642 : last baptismal certificate of the parish of Doazit (40) giving a report on the term of " Gesitaing".
• 1692 : last burial mentioned in the cemetery of Chrestians of the parish of Doazit (40).

Origins

The most various explanations were given as for their origin. It is probable besides that during the centuries various populations mixed. Their origins are probably as varied as the multitude of names which one affublait them, and who have each one a different explanation. Nevertheless, those remain mysterious, and several theses were evoked. One spoke about Visigoth S beaten by the Francs, about Moslems having found refuge in the Pyrenean valleys lasting the Reconquista in Spain by Kings Catholiques, about Moslems overcome at the time of their raids in France with captive VIIIe century or facts at the time of the Reconquista, of Jews, of cathares, gipsies, leprous or the excluded social ones (vagrants, without-ground, wire juniors, outlaws, etc). It is possible that the first were the descendants of overcome people or the fugitive ones which found refuge out of the cities in the only communities where they were certain that nobody would dare outward journey to seek them: that of the leprous one.

According to Alain Guerreau, researcher at CNRS, the reorganization of the feudal company in the South-west of France in XIIe-XIIIe centuries, created, in an economic context and policy solidified, a category of excluded (wire juniors, without ground) living with the margin. Leprous being rejected company at the same time, the amalgam would have been carried out between canting hypocrites and leprous. Thereafter, when their origin was forgotten, the phantasms of each time lent different stories to them.

As one saw higher, the name even of “canting hypocrite” is of dubious origin.

Prejudices

With the difference in the discriminations based on the Race, the Religion, the language which can be relayed by theorists or politicians without scruple, this segregation remained local and generally arbitrary: the birth in a family of Canting hypocrites was enough to establish for the remainder of the life the condition of Canting hypocrite.

The fear of the Lèpre is undoubtedly at the origin of the discrimination of this population put at the round of applause of the medieval initially and modern company then, making function of Scapegoat to entreat the fear of this disease which one was unaware of the origin and which one could not look after at the time. One thus showed them to poison the wells; they were said harmful and malefic, one claimed them sometimes wizard, overpowering them of all the evils and all the defects, affublant them of incredible tares such as the absence of lobe to the ears, to have the feet and the hands webbed, or to be goitreux. Obvious phantasms relating to the physical after-effects of leprosy, while the Goiter was a typical disease of the private mountain populations of iodized food. Insulation and consanguinity finally explain cases of mental backwardness in this population, but one can suppose that their percentage hardly differed from the remainder of the local population.

Supposed to release a nauseous odor, certain documents describe them sometimes small and brown with the dye olivâtre, sometimes large with the blue eyes. In fact no homogeneous or particular racial origin appears clearly, and nothing distinguishes them from the remainder population. Doctors were named as experts by the Parliament of Bordeaux and could only conclude that they were free from any pathology.

Segregation and discriminations

A great number of regulations weigh on them, some are oral, but others are transcribed in the “fors” (laws) of Navarre and Béarn of the 12th century and 13th century centuries.

They were held to carry a distinctive sign, generally a duck leg crossed in cloth red and bent on their clothing (with Marmande in 1396, the payment precise that Gahets will have to carry, bent on their outerwear, of the left side, a sign of a red, long of hand and broad fabric of three fingers). They did not have family name; only a first name followed by the mention “Chrestians” or “Canting hypocrite” was reproduced on their baptismal certificates, and the religious ceremonies which related to them generally unrolled at the fallen night. With their death, they were buried with the variation in a place of the cemetery or a cemetery with share. They were authorized to marry only between them. Christians, they were however relegated to the bottom of the churches in which they were authorized to penetrate only by very low special doors to oblige them to curve itself to enter there; a special stoup was also reserved to them. They lived finally in special districts, often of old leper-houses. They were not to go barefeet (what was current for the poor) and in certain areas were to announce their approach by a Crécelle. No humiliation was saved to them, until the least detail.

Alive like proscribed and struck Taboo, a considerable number of prohibitions dictated by the superstition weighed on them: certain trades were prohibited to them, generally the trades having a relationship with certain elements considered likely to transmit leprosy, like the ground, fire and the water (which they were to take with fountains which were reserved to them). They were thus never farmers. The trades in connection with the food were also prohibited to them. They were to carry any object slicing, therefore neither nor knife arms, but they curiously are found following occupations such as surgeons and one lends readily gifts to them of healers. The women were often midwives; until the 15th century, the cagottes had even the total exclusiveness in this activity. They were on the other hand authorized with touching wood, also were often carpenters or masons, loggers or wet coopers. Whenever the instruments of torture were out of wood, which was frequent in the boroughs and villages, it happened that they are torturers or carpenters, manufacturers of coffins and grave-diggers, functions which did not improve their image near the local populations nor consequently their fate near them. The occupations which they generally followed were those of basket makers, rope-makers and of tisserands. Paid in kind, they did not perceive wages and thus constituted a labor at a cheap rate. They on the other hand were exempted taxes, and this until the reign of Louis XIV where one counted 2500 in Béarn then of them. They repurchased then, realizing finance compensating for the taxes of which they were exempted, their “stamping” by royal decree.

Such living conditions often made them depend on public charity, in particular that of the Church and foundations intended to provide for the needs for the leprous incomes of the Croisade S.

The slow fight of the Canting hypocrites towards integration

The oldest trace of the fight of the Canting hypocrites for freedom and dignity appeared in Navarre. In 1514, the Canting hypocrites address to the Pape Leon X, complaining about discriminations in the churches. Leon X answered by a bubble enjoignant “to treat them with benevolence on the same foot that the other faithful ones” and entrusted the application of this bubble to the canon of Pampelune Don Juan de Santa Maria. But the practical application of these provisions in their connection caused interminable lawsuits, in spite of the support of the Emperor Charles Quint, in 1524.

During more than three centuries, the scenario was the same one: brimades following one another their regard, lawsuits gained by them more and more often, support of the high clergy and the princes, but resistance of the local authorities and the people.

At the 16th century, one estimates that they represented approximately ten percent of the local population. As from this time, if the interdicts remain, insulation is slackened, and with the wire of the centuries which follow they start little by little to be integrated in the population so that their family names, from now on registered on the registers of the civil statue do not distinguish them any more, since, with the same patronym in the same parish certain families are cagottes and others not. In fact, it is certain that the majority of the families of the south-west of France and other pouring of the Pyrenees in Spain count at least an ascending canting hypocrite.

It is the French revolution which will enable them to become full citizens, just as the Jews and the Protestants. One finds at the 19th century even traces of this population oppressed in the west and the South of France; and in spite of progress of civilization, the prevention which these unhappy inspired was not then completely extinct. It will be necessary however to await the end of the 19th century and the mixing of population due to the rural migration caused by increasing industrialization so that the prejudices disappear whose they were still the object, either in the form of discriminations but in the form of insults, the canting hypocrite term by constituting one, still used in the south-west of France, without one not knowing today any more which is the origin.

Conclusion

By going up the course of the history, it seems well that this population was a misadventure of a territory tormented by the invasions and the wars which follow, then by the changes of religions and the heresies which are born from it, and the wars which they cause.

The history of the canting hypocrites as testifies to the visceral fear as the populations with respect to leprosy tested, of the terror which this disease inspired, but more especially of the devastations which the fear operates, of the phantasms which it causes and of the reactions that it inspires, of the role that it plays in the segregation of part of the population.

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