Rhythms, problems, traces. The Middle Ages as an articulation of worlds and a documentary regime

Recent developments in connected history are putting the "Middle Ages" category to the test, not only as a periodization tool, but also as a means of dividing up space. As soon as we shift our gaze, in particular by considering the integration of Africa into a spatial system where the Old World is, for the most part, dominated by the Islamic empire, the possibility opens up of thinking about a "common Middle Ages". It obeys its own rhythms, from the ^8th to the ^16th century, punctuated by a succession of interconnections and narrowings. It was organized by networks rather than territories, favored dispersion and diasporas, and gave power to those who knew how to control thresholds. To understand this, we must not allow ourselves to be seduced by the circulatory paradigm dominant in current historiography, for what characterizes this medieval moment in the history of empires is the articulation of worlds closed in on themselves. Hence a possible definition by documentary regimes, characterized by the scarcity and intensity of traces.