The Introduction proposes the book’s thesis. During a long fifteenth century stretching from the 1380s into the 1510s, Perpignan’s residents self-consciously abandoned many of the foundational institutions and practices that had been established in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They came to believe that the past’s answers could not be the present’s answers. They also came to believe that the present’s answers would not be the future’s answers, because they anticipated a future of unending, unpredictable change and ceaseless adaptation. Driving this development was a series of disorienting experiences, from depopulation to economic decline to social conflict. And even when townspeople sought to preserve their foundational institutions and practices, they could not prevent their destruction at the hands of monarchies that had grown more powerful than ever. The introduction situates Time and Governance in historiographical debates concerning periodisation, as well as the nature and chronology of late medieval state formation. It also relates the study to methodological developments in institutional history and the history of mentalities.