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Concept
Cagot
Summary
The Cagots (ka.ɡo) were a persecuted minority found in the west of France and northern Spain: the Navarrese Pyrenees, Basque provinces, Béarn, Aragón, Gascony and Brittany. Evidence of the group exists as far back as 1000 CE.
The origins of both the term Cagots (and Agotes, Capots, Caqueux, etc.) and the Cagots themselves are uncertain.
It has been suggested that they were descendants of the Visigoths
defeated by Clovis I at the Battle of Vouillé,
and that the name Cagot derives from caas ("dog") and the Old Occitan for Goth gòt around the 6th century.
Yet in opposition to this etymology is the fact that the word cagot is first found in this form no earlier than the year 1542.
Seventeenth century French historian Pierre de Marca, in his Histoire de Béarn, propounds the reverse – that the word signifies "hunters of the Goths", and that the Cagots were descendants of the Saracens and Moors of Al-Andalus (or even Jews) after their defeat by Charles Martel,
although this proposal was comprehensively refuted by the Prior of Livorno, Abbot Filippo Venuti as early as 1754.
Antoine Court de Gébelin derives the term cagot from the Latin caco-deus, caco meaning "false, bad, deceitful", and deus meaning "god", due to a belief that Cagots were descended from the Alans and followed Arianism.
Their name differed by province and the local language:
In Gascony they were called Cagots, Cagous and Gafets
In Bordeaux they were called Ladres, Cahets or Gahetz
In Agenais, Bordeaux, and Landes de Gascogne they were called Gahets
In the Spanish Basque country they were called Agotes, Agots, Argotes, Agotak and Gafos
In the French Basque Country the forms Agotac and Agoth were also used.
In Anjou, Languedoc, and Armagnac they were called Capots, and Gens des Marais (marsh people)
In Brittany they were called Cacons, Cacous (possibly from the Breton word Cacodd meaning leprous), Caquots and Cahets. They were also sometimes referred to as Kakouz, Caqueux, Caquets, Caquins, and Caquous, names of the local Caquins de Bretagne due to similar low stature and discrimination in society.
Official source
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