Cagots, the Pointless Minority →
The Cagots were a persecuted minority in France and Spain from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. They were considered unclean and cretinous, were barred from most professions, and could only receive Holy Communion on the end of a stick — all of this despite the fact that there was no discernible difference between them and the rest of the population.
Cagots were shunned and hated. They were required to live in separate quarters in towns, called cagoteries, which were often on the far outskirts of the villages. Cagots were 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 worshipers. Either they were altogether forbidden to partake of the sacrament, or the Eucharist 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, to which, in some places, was attached the foot of a goose or duck (whence they were sometimes called “Canards”). So pestilential was their touch considered that it was a crime for them to walk the common road barefooted or to drink from the same communion cup as non-Cagots. The Cagots were restricted to the trades of carpenter, butcher, and rope-maker.
The Cagots were not an ethnic group, nor a religious group. They spoke the same language as the people in an area and generally kept the same religion as well. Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families identified as Cagots.
Which goes to show that humans don’t even need a visible basis, much less a justification, to discriminate against one another, to create sub-groups of people whom we subjugate and disenfranchise — it’s just something that people do, a natural impulse that we need to work against. Xenophobia is so powerful that it can make us afraid even of those who are exactly like us.
