The project “Yemen, Rural Communities, and Tribes: Society, Economy and Power (13th-15th c.)” (YemenARC) examines the historical role of Yemeni rural communities, predominantly tribal, between the 13th and the 15th centuries. YemenARC explores how rural communities and tribal groups shaped the social, cultural, and economic life of Yemen. It investigates how, unlike in modern Yemen where similar fault lines continue to undermine the state, political stability and efficient mechanisms of integration and mediation existed in the late medieval period. In doing so, it questions the conceptions and representations of tribalism during the late medieval period and analyses the agency and organization of rural communities. The project uses an innovative methodological approach that blends social history grounded in a close reading of medieval documents, historiographical narratives, and methods of digital humanities (DH), especially spatial analysis, social network analysis, and lexicometry. YemenARC is based on the rich late medieval Yemeni and Hijazi corpus, consisting of the administrative documentation of the Rasūlid Sultanate of Yemen (1229–1454) as well as historiographical narratives produced in Yemen and the Hijaz from the 13th to the 15th centuries. This allows for a thick description of medieval Yemeni rural communities and elites as a most interesting case study to contribute to a better understanding of the rural and tribal histories of the wider medieval Middle East.