Some genius Irish monk around 1000 AD figures out optics. He grinds lenses for telescopes and microscopes, figure out that germs cause spoiled food and that Jupiter's moons tell time and your location on the planet.
He travels around the know world teaching people in each location how to make decent lenses and how to figure out where they are relative to his monastory. He also teaches them how to can things by putting them in jars and heating them with wax melted on top. That's important for sea voyages and other expeditions, and because it makes him welcome where telescopes aren't instantly appreciated for military uses. Everybody in a cold climate would appreciate jam in February.
First Belfast, then Riga, then Kiev, then Odessa, then Batoum, then Baku, then Ashkabad, then Samarkand (I know they weren't there, but someone was), then Alma Ata, then Lanzhou, then Beijing, then Seoul, then Tokyo, then Hong Kong, then Saigon, then Jogjakarta, then Singapore, then Rangoon, then Calcutta, then Colombo, then Bombay, then Karachi, then Yemen, then Alexandria, then Syracuse, then Marseilles, then Bordeaux, then home. The whole thing takes about thirty years and he writes home by way of the chain of glass makers and lens grinders from every stop, though the last letters get home after he does.
He has mapped the known world and brought back plenty of stuff like soybeans and buckwheat long before they got here in OTL. How long does it take for somebody to decide to sail east from Japan, or west from Ireland, or south from Gibralter, or south east from Jogjakarta, in search of most of the rest of the world? And what happens when they do?
He travels around the know world teaching people in each location how to make decent lenses and how to figure out where they are relative to his monastory. He also teaches them how to can things by putting them in jars and heating them with wax melted on top. That's important for sea voyages and other expeditions, and because it makes him welcome where telescopes aren't instantly appreciated for military uses. Everybody in a cold climate would appreciate jam in February.
First Belfast, then Riga, then Kiev, then Odessa, then Batoum, then Baku, then Ashkabad, then Samarkand (I know they weren't there, but someone was), then Alma Ata, then Lanzhou, then Beijing, then Seoul, then Tokyo, then Hong Kong, then Saigon, then Jogjakarta, then Singapore, then Rangoon, then Calcutta, then Colombo, then Bombay, then Karachi, then Yemen, then Alexandria, then Syracuse, then Marseilles, then Bordeaux, then home. The whole thing takes about thirty years and he writes home by way of the chain of glass makers and lens grinders from every stop, though the last letters get home after he does.
He has mapped the known world and brought back plenty of stuff like soybeans and buckwheat long before they got here in OTL. How long does it take for somebody to decide to sail east from Japan, or west from Ireland, or south from Gibralter, or south east from Jogjakarta, in search of most of the rest of the world? And what happens when they do?
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