Quick edit based on the moderator comment: I'm not after cited sources or fine detail or anything like that. I mention magic in the next paragraph - this is a very fluid and unprofessional work of fiction. Contributions from anyone who has any knowledge whatsoever are appreciated. Sounds like there have been some bad novelist experiences. I have no business being called a novelist, and can write around pretty much any answer, I just think it would be worthwhile to not be making numbers up when I give background.
I'm thinking of slapping together a short story of sorts, and a foundation of it is that the catholic church tried some crazy magic to obliterate all the pagans in the world. This failed, because they vastly underestimated the world population due to ignorance of entire continents. In the interest of not looking like an idiot, I'd rather not make these numbers up, although obviously very broad estimates are fine.
Timeline-wise, I'm thinking ballpark 1100. Right around the start of the crusades, maybe I'll treat the crusades as the fallback plan when this voodoo stuff failed. Is it safe to say that the Catholic church was around its peak and a major political power at this time?
Assuming I'm right about that, the tougher part is the relative populations. Google has informed me that there were ballpark 300 million people in the world in 1100, and maybe 55-60 million in Europe. I assume then, that my Catholic base is around 50 million. I'm pretty sure the whole missionary thing didn't start til a couple hundred years later, so am I safe assuming Africa and the East were non-Christian?
And, finally, were there any major population centers of which Europe would be completely unaware outside of the Americas? How many of those ballpark 300 million people would a European power have no idea existed?
Obviously these numbers don't really matter but it's fun to get it kinda right, though I'm completely ignorant when it comes to history. For anyone worried, I have nothing against the Catholic church and this isn't intended as a commentary on religion, I just think it's fun backstory. Any insight is appreciated.
Hi there - we're happy to approve your question related to your novel, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that many flairs have become reluctant to answer questions for aspiring novelists, based on past experience: some aspiring novelists have a tendency to try to pump historians for trivia while ignoring the bigger points they were making, while others have a tendency to argue with historians when the historical reality does not line up with what's needed for a particular scene or characterization. Please respect the answers of people who have generously given you their time, even if it's not always what you want to hear.
Additionally, as amazing as our flair panel is, we should also point out that /r/AskHistorians is not a professional historical consultation service. If you're asking a question here because you need vital research for a future commercial product such as a historical novel, you may be better off engaging a historical consultant at a fair hourly rate to answer these questions for you. We don't know what the going rate for consultancy work would be in your locality, but it may be worth looking into that if you have in-depth or highly plot-reliant questions for this project. Some /r/AskHistorians flairs could be receptive to working as a consultant in this way. However, if you wish for a flair here to do this work for you, you will need to organize this with them yourselves.