Trust and doubt: the late medieval bishop and local knowledge

At best, the old habit of referring to the Middle Ages as an ‘age of faith’ could be seen as historical shorthand for two interpretative positions. First, and most charitably, it might be seen as explaining a supposedly unified medieval culture to a modernizing world, conveying the integral position of religion within medieval society to an age when separation of the spheres was becoming instinctive. Second, and more realistically, the idea of an age of faith was intended to draw a line between the epistemologies of the medieval world (credulous, uncurious, accepting of authority) and those of modernity (rationalist, scientific, critical). While the omnipresence of religion and the fact that it cannot be treated as a separate sphere have not been accepted by all medievalists (most tend to be historians either ‘of religion’ or ‘of politics’ after all), it is axiomatic for those who have thought about it more than momentarily. Medieval epistemology, meanwhile, has been subjected to a great deal of penetrating study. The centrality of rationalism, scientific modes of enquiry, criticism, scepticism and doubt to the fields of philosophy, theology and natural science (including medicine) is well-known. Epistemologies in the field of law have been less actively interrogated, but I have taken a cue from John Arnold’s work on how inquisitors approached problems of evidence and areas of doubt when considering the truth of heresy allegations. They were supposed to work case-by-case with an awareness of the limitations of their knowledge