Firsthand eastern experience could be abandoned for bookish authority under scrutiny

Evidence

His final work, the Libellus ad nationes orientales (Treatise on the oriental nations), describes the different Christian sects of the Orient; ironically, Riccoldo, who had lived for a dozen years in the East, here slavishly follows the classifications of Thomas Aquinas, who had never set foot in the East. It may be that Riccoldo, under scrutiny for too rashly expressing his own views about oriental Christians, wished in his final two works to confine himself to the compilation of impeccable authorities. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1238

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the general pattern in this book of how textual authority trumped lived encounter in medieval Christian views of the East.