Our period was marked by the production of encyclopedic works the object of which was to bring together as much human knowledge as possible in convenient, readable, and, frequently, in popular form. These encyclopedias carried on the traditions of Pliny, Solinus, Isidore, Bede, and other earlier writers and for the most part were lacking in originality. Made up of paraphrases and word-for-word excerpts from older books, they exemplify better than any other type of literary production the respect which the man of the Middle Ages felt towards the authority of the written word and his lack of critical acumen. Their immense popularity shows that they satisfied a distinct want: the lore contained in them, however worthless and puerile it often may seem to us, formed an important part of the intellectual cargo of the medieval mind. It is imperative, therefore, that representatives of this type of work should be consulted by anyone who wishes to arrive at a just estimate of the status of medieval knowledge.[441] Most of the geography of the encyclopedias was a geography handed down from classical times, a geography but distantly related to contemporary facts and one in which fabulous elements tended to persist and multiply at the expense of sound and accurate information. Yet it was the geography of the majority of the lettered men, and the man who did not himself actually travel found here practically the only convenient means of learning about the countries of the world. He might pick up occasional details of routes to Rome and Palestine from pilgrims, traders, or soldiers; but only in the pages of the encyclopedias could he find anything approaching a systematic treatment of the earth and its various parts. “DE IMAGINE MUNDI”