Henry H. Breen.
St. Lucia.
DERIVATION OF THE WORD "BIGOT."
At p. 80. of Mr. Trench's admirable little volume On the Study of Words, an etymology is assigned to the word bigot, which is, I think, clearly erroneous:
"Two explanations of it are current," writes Mr. Trench, "one of which traces it up to the early Normans, while they yet retained their northern tongue, and to their often adjuration by the name of God; with sometimes a reference to a famous scene in French history, in which Rollo, Duke of Normandy, played a conspicuous part: the other puts it in connexion with beguines, called often in Latin beguttæ, a name by which certain communities of pietist women were known in the Middle Ages."
I agree with Mr. Trench in thinking, that neither of these derivations is the correct one. But I am obliged, quite as decidedly, to reject that which he proceeds to offer. He thinks that we owe—
"Bigot rather to that profound impression which the Spaniards made upon all Europe in the fifteenth and the following century. Now the word bigote," he continues, "means in Spanish 'moustachio;' and as contrasted with the smooth, or nearly smooth, upper lip of most other people, at that time the Spaniards were the 'men of the moustachio'.... That they themselves connected firmness and resolution with the mustachio; that it was esteemed the outward symbol of these, it is plain from such phrases as 'pombre de bigote,' a man of resolution; 'tener bigotes,' to stand firm. But that in which they eminently displayed their firmness and resolution in those days was their adherence to whatever the Roman see imposed and taught. What then more natural, or more entirely according to the law of the generation of names, than that this striking and distinguishing outward feature of the Spaniard should have been laid hold of to express that character and condition of mind which eminently were his, and then transferred to all others who shared the same?"
Of this it must be admitted, that "se non e vero, e ben trovato." And the only reason for rejecting such an etymology is the existence of another with superior claims.
Bigot is derived, as I think will be hardly doubted on consideration, from the Italian bigio, grey. Various religious confraternities, and especially a branch of the order of St. Francis which, from being parcel secular and parcel regular, was called "Terziari di S. Francesco," clothed themselves in grey; and from thence were called Bigiocchi and Bigiotti. And from a very early period, the word was used in a bad sense.