Many scholars believe that official medieval persecutions of various minority groups were undertaken very reluctantly by medieval authorities and only in order to soothe popular unrest caused by underlying popular hostility to the groups in question. This belief is highly questionable. For one thing, there are few indications of any profound underlying popular hostility toward persecuted groups in cases where persecutions were particularly violent and sustained. For another, the most serious and widespread persecutions carried out by medieval authorities seem to have had as targets exactly those groups that most effectively disputed these authorities' right to govern.
The argument proceeds by providing reasons to suspect the reliability of any conclusions based on evidence concerning the distant past.