In the fifteenth century, Renaissance humanists were not the only ones to think about time differently from previous generations. Time and Governance examines how and why late medieval townspeople – those who bought, sold, and manufactured for a living – reconceptualized time and applied their new understanding of it to politics and to economics. In doing so, this book reconstructs and analyses a place and time both unexpectedly familiar and deeply alien. Blending institutional history with the history of mentalities, Philip Daileader engages with issues of state building, finance, production, social conflict, national identity, and demography. He addresses the question of whether late medieval Europe deserves its often-grim reputation by recapturing and prioritizing the life experiences, thoughts, and opinions of those who lived then and there.