TY - JOUR TI - Calculating the Middle Ages? The Project "Complexities and Networks in the Medieval Mediterranean and Near East" (COMMED) AU - Preiser-Kapeller, Johannes T2 - Medieval Worlds AB - The project "Complexities and networks in the Medieval Mediterranean and Near East" (COMMED) at the Division for Byzantine Research of the Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences focuses on the adaptation and development of concepts and tools of network theory and complexity sciences for the analysis of societies, polities and regions in the medieval world in a comparative perspective. Key elements of its methodological and technological toolkit are applied, for instance, in the new project "Mapping medieval conflicts: a digital approach towards political dynamics in the pre-modern period" (MEDCON), which analyses political networks and conflict among power elites across medieval Europe with five case studies from the 12th to 15th century. For one of these case studies on 14th century Byzantium, the explanatory value of this approach is presented in greater detail. The presented results are integrated in a wider comparison of five late medieval polities across Afro-Eurasia (Byzantium, China, England, Hungary and Mamluk Egypt) against the background of the {\guillemotright}Late Medieval Crisis{\guillemotleft} and its political and environmental turmoil. Finally, further perspectives of COMMED are outlined. DA - 2015/// PY - 2015 DO - 10.1553/medievalworlds_no2_2015s100 DP - arXiv.org VL - medieval worlds IS - Volume 2015.2 SP - 100 EP - 127 SN - 2412-3196, 2412-3196 ST - Calculating the Middle Ages? UR - http://arxiv.org/abs/1606.03433 Y2 - 2016/06/29/14:57:00 KW - Nonlinear Sciences - Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems KW - Physics - Physics and Society ER -