I think the core of the matter is that in the year 1111 in areas that used a calendar system including November, the year was not 1111. It was MCXI.
The date would likely not be written as a numeral at all, but in reference to the nearest major religious feast or saint's day. But even if it were (which is found in some chronicles, or at least, later copies of them), it would be XI.
Can you say a little more about what you mean by "what was the world like"? I mean, in the middle of the modern-day US, Cahokia's population has just jumped up massively, as the city becomes/helping make it the central hub for the center-of-the-continent trade up and down its rivers (Cahokia is situated at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers--modern-day St. Louis, Missouri).
In modern-day Germany, Hildegard of Bingen and her mentor Jutta are finally just about ready to enter the women's cloister at Disibodenberg. On one hand, they're part of the classic Western monastic tradition of people pledged to a monastery in childhood (Hildegard will be 14 upon entry, but she was probably marked out long before that). On the other, they're participating in a form of monastic life that on one hand recenters itself around the traditional austerity, liturgy, prayer; but on the other hand is more involved in the world beyond its walls in some ways. As an adult, Hildegard gains the support of powerful lay patrons to be one of a massive wave of founders of new monasteries. She writes new liturgies and hymns and liturgical dramas for her convent, music which gets the attention of the new breed of academic clergy starting to convene in Paris.
Jewish people in central Europe are trying to make sense of the Crusader pogroms against them--and trying to come to terms with the fact that some people accepted baptism in order to save their lives; trying to deal with whether that is a betrayal of Y*h, and if it is, how can they theologically and practically cope.
In Iberia, on the other hand, Jewish people are benefiting greatly from Christians' success in carving out more Christian territory into Islamic al-Andalus, especially because the Berber dynasties that have been able to re-consolidate Islamic power in the peninsula, the Almoravids and Almohads, have been much less friendly to anyone not following their specific form of Islam, than are earlier, contemporaneous, and subsequent governments.
The Swahili city-states are probably still more like fishing villages along the eastern African coast, but they're not far away from flourishing with the introduction of Islam and fuel of intercontinental (!) trade.
...But in none of these places does it specially matter that some people in the world might write the year as MCXI versus next year when it will be MCXII.
Since you asked about the world and my specialty is China, the short answer is no, nobody cared because nobody knew the year was 1111 by some calendar.
China was mainly under the Song dynasty at the time ruled by the flamboyant Huizong. The year was the first year of Zhenghe. Huizong is best known as an artist, calligrapher, art collector, and daoist worshipper. He's also widely seen as the person who led to the fall of the Northern Song by forging an alliance with the rising Jin dynasty in the far north against the Liao, which was a powerful state between the two. The Jin would then sweep down and takeover north China and capturing Huizong in the process (he abdicated right before it happened). This was all in the future though, taking place 1126.
Northern bits of what is now China was ruled by the Liao dynasty. They were Khitan in origin and 1111 was the first year of Tianqing. Nothing too remarkable happened in 1111, but the following year when the Liao emperor received a group of Jurchen chiefs at court, he asked them to dance to entertain him during a banquet. They all complied, except one guy, Wanyan Aguda. He would rebel in a few years time, first subjugating neighbouring tribes and then forging that alliance with the Song and defeated the Liao. His armies didn't stop there and took the capital of the Song in 1126, capturing the aforementioned Song Huizong.
So no, 1111 wasn't a thing in East Asia.
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I guess my follow up question to this is did the world have the standardized AD/BC year system that we use now by that time? I can't remember when that became commonplace
I guess my follow up question to this is did the world have the standardized AD/BC year system that we use now by that time? I can't remember when that became commonplace
No
Since you asked about the world and my specialty is China, the short answer is no, nobody cared because nobody knew the year was 1111 by some calendar.
China was mainly under the Song dynasty at the time ruled by the flamboyant Huizong. The year was the first year of Zhenghe. Huizong is best known as an artist, calligrapher, art collector, and daoist worshipper. He's also widely seen as the person who led to the fall of the Northern Song by forging an alliance with the rising Jin dynasty in the far north against the Liao, which was a powerful state between the two. The Jin would then sweep down and takeover north China and capturing Huizong in the process (he abdicated right before it happened). This was all in the future though, taking place 1126.
Northern bits of what is now China was ruled by the Liao dynasty. They were Khitan in origin and 1111 was the first year of Tianqing. Nothing too remarkable happened in 1111, but the following year when the Liao emperor received a group of Jurchen chiefs at court, he asked them to dance to entertain him during a banquet. They all complied, except one guy, Wanyan Aguda. He would rebel in a few years time, first subjugating neighbouring tribes and then forging that alliance with the Song and defeated the Liao. His armies didn't stop there and took the capital of the Song in 1126, capturing the aforementioned Song Huizong.
So no, 1111 wasn't a thing.