SNA

One of the primary goals of the DiplomatiCon project is to examine the development, maintenance, and structures of the various formal and informal networks that existed across the medieval Mediterranean, as well as their interrelations. While it is well known that the “Christian” west and north and the “Islamicate” east and south maintained contact throughout the medieval period, the project seeks to investigate the processes through which these contacts emerged, how these processes were governed by spatial and structural characteristics of the networks and by the personal characteristics of individuals, and to what extent they were influenced by the varying intensity of contact across different networks. An investigation into these dynamics over time allows not only for a mapping of the local forces through which cross-Mediterranean networks emerged, but also for a formal testing of our current understanding of these interactions and the introduction of a pioneering formal description of phenomena that have previously been understood only descriptively.