Medieval encyclopaedists retained discredited passages rather than omitting them.

Evidence

The encyclopaedist in any case included all the material that was available to him, without intending thereby positively to signify assent to it, still less actively to assert its truth. Any relevant matter was interesting and should be included without further examination. … Both Varagine and Higden quoted stories that they explicitly realised were irreconcilable; for themselves, they preferred the better, but, as was the custom in such cases, they retained the discredited passages in their texts. As a general rule, there is a wide gap between the most sensible and the least sensible story in a single text. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1295

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval encyclopaedists included material without asserting its truth; Medieval copyists reproduced contradictory views without vouching for them