Putting the Net Back into the Internet: The Materiality of Networks from a Premodern Perspective

This essay engages head on with this special issue’s central question—what do medieval things have to tell us about connectivity and object-mediated communication?—by comparing the depiction of nets in sources our contemporary imaginations Internet. The Internet is popularly thought as immaterial—as wireless ethereal lines communication—rather than pipelines server villages. While terms network, Internet, World Wide Web are modern, among oldest human technologies. Medieval portray them composed both material immaterial elements; strings gaps between. elements a net that seen immaterial—the spaces between strings—are essential its function. Whether used for carrying, hunting, or decorating, those ensure prey cannot see it from outside, stretchable, allows glimpse into what within. equally essential: they capture hold. texts images (for instance, various depictions Vulcan’s Arachne’s weft, German Arthurian romance Daniel Blossoming Valley, Arabic story collection Kalila Dimna) emphasize tension components by exaggerating inescapability inside invisibility outside. They also stress nature traps rather connectives use metaphors narratives, much network analysis uses variety structures areas knowledge. In I suggest returning notion nets, including material, corrective current perceptions. argue fear might persist modern