Editing Caste (section)

==== Basque Country ====
For centuries, through the modern times, the majority regarded [[Cagot]]s who lived primarily in the [[Basque Country (greater region)|Basque region]] of France and Spain as an inferior caste, and a group of untouchables.<ref>{{cite book |last=Delacampagne |first=Christian |title=L'invention du racisme: Antiquité et Moyen-Âge |language=fr |trans-title=The invention of racism: Antiquity and the Middle Ages |publisher=[[Fayard]] |series=Hors collection |date=1983 |location=Paris |isbn=9782213011172 |doi=10.3917/fayar.delac.1983.01 |url=https://www.cairn.info/l-invention-du-racisme--9782213011172.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230419111416/https://www.cairn.info/l-invention-du-racisme--9782213011172.htm |archive-date=19 April 2023 |pages=114–115, 121–124}}</ref> While they had the same skin color and religion as the majority, in the churches they had to use segregated doors, drink from segregated fonts, and receive communion on the end of long wooden spoons. It was a closed social system. The socially isolated Cagots were endogamous, and chances of social mobility non-existent.<ref name="indi-2008-07-28">{{cite news |last=Thomas |first=Sean |date=28 July 2008 |title=The Last Untouchable in Europe |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-last-untouchable-in-europe-878705.html |work=[[The Independent]] |location=London |access-date=28 July 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210112024608/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/last-untouchable-europe-878705.html |archive-date=12 January 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Jolly |first=Geneviève |date=2000 |title=Les cagots des Pyrénées: une ségrégation attestée, une mobilité mal connue |language=fr |trans-title=The cagots of the Pyrenees: an attested segregation, a poorly known mobility |journal={{ill|Le Monde alpin et rhodanien|fr}} |volume=28 |number=1–3 |pages=197–222 [205] |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/mar_0758-4431_2000_num_28_1_1716 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230213120731/https://www.persee.fr/doc/mar_0758-4431_2000_num_28_1_1716 |archive-date=13 February 2023 |quote=L'étendue des aires matrimoniales et la distribution des patronymes constituent les principaux indices de la mobilité des cagots. F. Bériac relie l'extension des aires matrimoniales des cagots des différentes localités étudiées (de 20 à plus de 35 km) à l'importance et la densité relative des groupes de cagots, corrélant la recherche de conjoints lointains à l'épuisement des possibilités locales. A. Guerreau et Y. Guy, en utilisant la documentation gersoise exploitée par G. Loubès et les documents publiés par Fay pour le Béarn et la Chalosse (XVe–XVIIe s.) concluent que l'endogamie des cagots semble s'opérer au sein de trois sous-ensembles qui correspondent à ceux que distingue la terminologie à partir du XVIe siècle: agotes, cagots, capots. Au sein de chacun d'eux, les distances moyennes d'intermariage sont relativement importantes: entre 12 et 15 km en Béarn et Chalosse, plus de 30 km dans le Gers, dans une société où plus de la moitié des mariages se faisaient à l'intérieur d'un même village. |trans-quote=The extent of marital areas and the distribution of surnames are the main indices of cagot mobility. F. Bériac links the extension of the matrimonial areas of the Cagots of the different localities studied (from 20 to more than 35 km) to the importance and the relative density of the groups of cagots, correlating the search for distant spouses with the exhaustion of possibilities local. {{ill|Alain Guerreau|fr}} and Y. Guy, using the [[Gers]] documentation exploited by G. Loubès and the documents published by Fay for Béarn and [[Chalosse]] (15th–17th century) conclude that the endogamy of Cagots seems to operate within three subsets that correspond to those distinguished by terminology from the 16th century: agotes, cagots, capots. Within each of them, the average intermarriage distances are relatively long: between 12 and 15 km in Béarn and Chalosse, more than 30 km in the Gers, in a society where more than half of marriages took place at home, inside the same village.}}</ref>