This editorial introduces a special issue examining history teachers’ epistemic beliefs and their implications for teaching and learning history. Emerging from a 2022 symposium, the collection explores how teachers conceptualise the construction of historical knowledge, how these understandings shape classroom practice, and how they interact with curricular expectations. The editors highlight a central tension in the field between efforts to measure and refine epistemic thinking—often privileging disciplinary, criterialist approaches—and critical perspectives that question these normative assumptions and advocate for broader, more situated epistemologies. The issue identifies key challenges, including inconsistencies in teachers’ beliefs, the limits of existing measurement tools, and the influence of institutional contexts and resources. It also emphasises the need to account for the complexity and fluidity of epistemic cognition in both teachers and learners. Overall, the editorial calls for more reflective, pluralistic, and context-sensitive approaches to researching and teaching history’s epistemology.