 The role of authority in the endoxic definition of probability has been widely discussed and  criticized.[17]  Although the word auctoritas does not occur regularly in definitions of “the probable”, it seems indisputable that these definitions refer to authority as the basis of probability. The authority in question is, in principle, intellectual or epistemic (based on expertise); but the distinction between epistemic and hierarchical authority was always blurry, and the latter could (and often did) prevail in practice. Given the dismal training of parish priests, this was surely often the case because the uneducated were called on to accept the opinions of their parish priest or confessor (Thomas Aquinas, Quodlibetales, III, q. 4, 2, 47; and Antoninus, Summa, I, 3, 10, 64). Moreover, scholastic reliance on institutional indicators for competence may have impeded a clear distinction between epistemic and hierarchical authority, since epistemic authority was to some extent tied to hierarchical success in academia. Students, for instance, were prima facie expected to believe the opinions of their professors (i.e., masters). 