Agotes: who were these forgotten inhabitants of the Pyrenees?

This article is dedicated to a forgotten people: the exhausts. That his name doesn't tell you anything is not surprising. His story is somewhat mysterious and somewhat dark, but if this is so, it is because they deliberately tried to end it.

And it is that talking about exhaustion even today is considered as something bad or undesirable in some areas of the Pyrenees. In other places, simply no one remembers them anymore.

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The mysterious history of the exhausts

It is known that the Agotes inhabited the western part of the Pyrenees, between what is now France and Spain. The first records about them date back to the 13th century, and already in these the exhausts are referred as an inferior race. They were known as "the untouchables."

However, the history of this group is very blurred, and its opacity is due to different factors, but its disappearance as a people has prevented even having any type of oral history.

In addition to their disappearance as a group, they wanted to forget their history. In fact, in the end they were the ones who tried to make this happen. In times of the French Revolution, many exhausts or descendants of them

they came to loot local archives to erase any trace of information about their ancestors. It is believed that many emigrated and others were eventually assimilated into the general population.

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Living in apartheid since the 13th century

In medieval times, the exhausted were not allowed to mix with other people, having to live apart from other people. They were separated throughout the centuries, and when a depletion entered a city they had to report its presence. Like the lepers, they had to go ringing the bell.

Traditionally, exhaustion has been related to some type of plague. A so-called "white plague" is documented, which supposedly had a hereditary nature and would only affect them. In addition, the bad odors attributed to them made being prohibited from earning a living from certain jobs (agriculture, livestock or any that could mean contagion).

Not being allowed to enter most trades or professions, they were pushed into jobs such as construction or music. But it seems that one of the professions that they were forced to take on with special zeal was that of lumberjacks, and they ended up being good carpenters over time.

They made barrels for wine, coffins for the dead and even Pyrenean churches from which they were partially excluded. They could enter the churches, but they had their own doors to access them separately from the rest.

Prohibitions and persecution

It is undeniable that there were very strange bans on exhausts. For example, while the peasants went barefoot, they were forced to cover their feet, because it was believed that they were deformed. They were also not allowed to touch certain parts of public buildings such as bridges.

Knowing oddities of the style, it is not surprising that exhausts were not allowed to eat with non-exhausted ones. They were even forbidden to marry other members of society. This led to marked inbreeding during centuries.

Some said the exhausts were psychotic and even cannibalistic, and fanaticism was sometimes brutally applied to them. There is evidence of terrible concrete acts against them at the beginning of the 18th century. For example, one had his feet pierced with sharp pieces of iron for daring to cultivate fields and many others were burned at the stake.

Basically, if there was a crime in a village, the exhausts were usually blamed, the same way that happened with the women who considered themselves witches.

Who were they and where did they come from?

As we have been able to verify, there have been many absurd ideas around exhaustion, but most of the information comes from "Scientific examinations" carried out by French doctors from the S. XVIII.

In this way, what we know is that there was a group of people who lived apart from the rest, because apparently they had to be disowned for some reason as serious as it was unknown. People discriminated against them for some specific reason that no one remembered anymore. In addition, it is said that they were despicable, since defects and diseases were supposedly expressed in his body.

But who were the exhausts really, where did they come from? Next we will see the 4 most serious hypotheses that are had so far.

Hypothesis # 1: lepers

There are several historians who have dedicated themselves to trying to solve the mystery of the depletions. One of the existing theories is that they were simply contagious lepers or descendants of them. This would explain why certain things were not allowed to be touched when exhausted. But this contrasts with various sources that describe them as healthy and even robust individuals.

Hypothesis # 2: slaves

Another hypothesis is that the exhausts were slaves of the goths, a Germanic town that arrived in what is now France during the Middle Ages. The etymologists deduce that the agotes, known as "cagots" in France, could owe their name to "cani Gothi". This means "dogs of the Goths". Although it is also believed possible that its name derives from "poop".

Hypothesis # 3: carpenters

In 2008, the British writer Graham Robb formulated a new theory through the publication of his book The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography. Robb thinks that the exhausts were originally a guild of carpenters who worked very well with wood. This new hypothesis goes in the direction that the commercial rivalry generated a fanaticism against them.

Hypothesis # 4: Saracens, Cathars or some other isolated human group

There is also the belief that you exhaust them are descendants of an ethnic group that became isolated at some point in history. It is believed that they could be a group of Saracens, Arabs who remained in that region after the Muslim invasions of the 8th century of what is now Portugal, Spain and southern France.

Fideles are also associated with Catharism, whose geographic center was located in Occitania. This Christian doctrine criticized that Catholicism had abandoned the evangelical ideals and exhibited gold in its churches. Thus, in the 13th century, Pope Innocent III declared what became known as the Albigensian crusade to eliminate "heretics", allowing what was the incorporation of Occitania into France.

Bibliographic references:

• Aguirre Delclaux, M.C. (2005). You exhaust them. The end of a curse. Madrid: Sílex Ediciones.
• Bell, G. (2008). The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
• Fabre, M. (1987). Le Mystère des Cagots, race maudite des Pyrénées. Pau: MCT.
• García-Egocheaga, J. (2003). Damn minorities: the unknown history of other peoples of Spain. Madrid: Susaeta Editions.