The Great Chain of Being

In the middle ages, reason was to basically make observations and draw conclusions. We just trusted our senses and kind of made observations from that. There isn't a lot of reasoning happening at the same level. That will find it in the centuries coming in the enlightenment where reason is seen as a thing done on its own terms. So then we have authority. How do we know what to believe and what to trust about the world and how it works and what's true? Well that was largely mediated through the church. Authority came from god, but it came through the pope and through that hierarchical structure of archbishops and bishops and priests. And so for me, knowing who i am a self