Long Live Oral History!

I just realized the other day:

At the time of the crusades (11th - 13th centuries), there existed no maps (in the sense of an actual lay of the land) of europe or the levant. It wasn't until the late 15th century that Fra. Angelico produced his rough outline, and even then it only circulated among the elite (and many of the crusades were 'grass-roots' movements), and only a handful of copies were made. Furthering the lack of geographical knowledge was the fact that migration and trade were limited to very small local areas, and so contact with foreigners would have been near unknown. And YET - tens of thousands of peasants and knights made their way to the holy land to fight their zealous battles. How did they know which way to go to get there???
and then i realized: all churches of the time were built facing east - to face jerusalem and the rising sun/son which that signified. This knowledge would have been passed down from bishop to bishop and church architect to church architect, and it is the only way i can figure the crusaders knew which way to go. And so via oral history from the first apostles to the poor english peasants a thousand years later - knowledge of where the holy lands were was passed down, allowing the zealous to have a vague idea of where they were headed.
Cool!
Made me realize that it would have felt a lot more like a crazy treasure hunt than my GPS-oriented mind had previously painted the picture.