What did the medieval people know about the world ? The medieval's knew that Europe Asia and part of Africa existed but they had much more land to find. They thought the world was flat and if you sailed to far you would fall off the edge of the world and die but as we know now that is not true. Their maps gradually became more detailed their first map just had one little squiggle and oceans and that's what they thought the world was like !! There were many renaissance explorers here's an example Sir Francis Drake, he was famous for the first successful man to sail around the world and survive. They went exploring to prove to everyone else that the world wasn't flat and to find new lands and to find more valuable minerals.