Medieval terms for non-Christians were used loosely and interchangeably

Evidence

Alan, op. cit. Paganus was used thoughtlessly, just as hereticus was, by authors not actually needing to distinguish at the moment of writing; in such cases it really means ‘neither a Christian nor a Jew’. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2281

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies that paganus and hereticus were often sloppy synonyms meaning just ‘not Christian or Jew’.
• XREF: connects to: Medieval writers mostly ignored that shared terms hid different meanings