At the end of the eleventh century, European knowledge of a wider world was emerging from a period of relative ignorance. Patterns of long-distance trade across the Mediterranean, an increased impetus in pilgrimage, and the settlement of previously little-known regions had, by the 1090s, all contributed to a growing awareness of distant lands and peoples. Italians were regularly trading in north Africa and the Levant; Normans had established themselves in southern Italy; French-speaking knights participated in campaigns of Christian conquest in the Iberian peninsula; Scandinavians were a familiar sight in Constantinople, and western knights had even fought with the Seljuqs in Asia Minor. The response to the papal preaching of the First Crusade in 1095, however, stimulated travel to the eastern Mediterranean and Near East on a much larger scale than previously. Most crusaders were experiencing topographies and landscapes that were unfamiliar, and encountering peoples whose appearance, customs, and values challenged their preconceptions about the world.