_Bigotry._--The word Bigotry pervades almost all the languages of
Europe, but its etymology has not been satisfactory to Noah Webster. The
application of it is generally intelligible enough; being directed
against those who pertinaciously adhere to their own system of religious
faith. But as early as the tenth century it appears, that the use of the
word Bigot originated in a circumstance, or incident, unconnected with
religious views. An old chronicle, published by Duchesne in the 3rd vol.
of his _Hist. Francorum Scriptores_, states that Rollo, on receiving
Normandy from the King of France, or at least of that part of it, was
called upon to kiss the foot of the king, a ceremony, it seems, in use
not at the Vatican only; but he refused "unless the king would raise his
foot to his mouth." When the counts in attendance admonished him to
comply with this usual form of accepting so valuable a fief, he still
declined, exclaiming in pure Anglo-Saxon, "Not He, By God,"--_Ne
se bigoth_; "quod interpetatur," says the chronicler, "non [ille] per
Deum." The king and his peers, deriding him, called him afterwards
Bigoth, or Bigot, instead of Rollo. "Unde Normanni," adds the writer,
who brings his history down to the year 1137, "adhuc Bigothi dicuntur."
This will account for the prepositive article "Le" prefixed to the
Norman Bigods, the descendants of those who followed William the
Conqueror into England, such as Hugh Le Bigod, &c. Among other
innovations in France, the word Bigotisme has been introduced, of which
Boiste gives an example as combined with Philosophisme:--"Le Bigotisme
n'est, comme le Philosophisme, qu'un Egoïsme systématique. Le
Philosophisme et le Bigotisme se traitent comme les chiens et les loups;
cependant leurs espèces se rapprochent, et produisent des monstres."