Even accurate information about Islam reaching Europe had no reliability filter.

Evidence

Benjamin Kedar has traced the textual history of some of these early Latin texts about Islam, along with that of other numerous brief mentions of the beliefs and customs of the Saracens; “it is evident,” Kedar says, “that a considerable amount of information about the Saracens did reach Catholic Europe between the mid-seventh and early eleventh century.” Yet this information, if perhaps “considerable” in aggregate, was quite thinly spread. Moreover, there was no way for the reader to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate information. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 585

Categorization

• QUESTION: The point that readers could not distinguish accurate from inaccurate info is key — worth checking how accuracy correlates with what later became canonical.