as the chief journeys of men were in the nature of pilgrimages; but
these often included a sort of commercial travelling, pilgrims
often combining business and religion on their journeys. The chief
information about Eastern Europe which reached the West was given
by the succession of pilgrims who visited Palestine up to the time
of the Crusades. Our chief knowledge of the geography of Europe
daring the five centuries between 500 and 1000 A.D. is given in
the reports of successive pilgrims.

[Illustration: THE PEUTINGER TABLE--WESTERN PART.]

This period may be regarded as the Dark Age of geographical knowledge,
during which wild conceptions like those contained in the Hereford
map were substituted for the more accurate measurements of the
ancients. Curiously enough, almost down to the time of Columbus
the learned kept to these conceptions, instead of modifying them by
the extra knowledge gained during the second period of the Middle
Ages, when travellers of all kinds obtained much fuller information
of Asia, North Europe, and even, as, we shall see, of some parts
of America.

It is not altogether surprising that this period should have been
so backward in geographical knowledge, since the map of Europe
itself, in its political divisions, was entirely readjusted during
this period. The thousand years of history which elapsed between 450
and 1450 were practically taken up by successive waves of invasion
from the centre of Asia, which almost entirely broke up the older
divisions of the world.

In the fifth century three wandering tribes, invaded the Empire, from