Quarantine Rabbit Holes In this time of forced isolation

We covered the Cagots case in another thread, there is little written in english about them but in Basque (which I don't speak) and french (my native language) there are plenty of info. Here is the french wiki page about them :

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cagot

Even if you don't speak french, just scroll through to see the difference in the volume of information.

While on travel in Basque country, two years ago, I learned more about them. While mentalities have changed people with cagot blood (they're mostly descendants, not "official" cagots) still hide it these days. One lady came out and was the subject of a french documentary a while back, because she knew about the "brand" and the name but was never really informed of what it meant by her parents.

I saw some remains of the history of those people. The local church, a few centuries old, still had their spot.

You got to understand that while they were treated like pestiferous people and undesirables, the Church still thought they could somehow "redeem" themselves if they followed the religion.

The front (main) entrance was near the altar, so you would fill the place from the front. The normal people would get all the seats on the ground floor, all the way to the back of the building. The rich people would have the balcony, that you could access from a stair case at the back.

The cagots had a separate box, which was a small balcony, off the ground but (somewhat hidden) under the rich people's balcony. It was completely closed by wood panel but had a small screen, similar to what you would see in a confession box (not my picture):



There were no windows at their level so the only light coming in was from that screen or from the door that led to their box (which I'll show later). It means that they had no contact with the other people in the church, except the priest, and through that screen you could only see shadows.

Now, their access was through a small door in the back alley, since there was no way (at that time) they could be allowed in the front, at the view of everybody else. Here is a picture I took of that small staircase (their box is off limits these days, it's there but not used at all):



Eventually some cagots married regular people and that was how some of their descendants found a way out of that "state" but others left no kids behind or had health issues, since they could only marry and have kids with each other for a long time.

As of today, they have pretty much vanished as a group, even if some people still have their blood and their stories still lives on.