Knowledge of the World Outside Europe
The people of this time have a very poor idea of world geography. Given a map of the world — or even of Europe — the average person would have no idea what it is supposed to represent. Even in the Moslem world — where people are much more cosmopolitan and educated — understanding of world geography is poor. Even though there are trade routes that stretch from Europe to China and Africa, people have a very poor conception of what the people are like in those places, or even where those places are. Trade is slow, and passes through many hands, so the far ends of trade routes are completely alien.
The European idea of the world is less like the writings of Marco Polo, and more like those of John Mandeville (Mandeville actually wrote his fictitious “memoirs” after Marco Polo, but his descriptions of foreign lands would have resonated with 11th century readers.). The European idea of the world consists of a handful of facts, probably twisted, mixed with the downright outrageous. The idea of distant islands inhabited by dragons is no more scoffed at than the idea of a distant land called “India.” The mindset of the 11th century does not distinguish between the mundane and the fantastic as we do today. All of the information they have about the distant world is hearsay, so there is no way to tell fact from legend.