In this well-written book on fifteenth-century Perpignan, Philip Daileader examines the way in which townspeople governed their community. In 1402, and in the years that followed, fundamental institutional changes took place in this city. Unlike before, Perpignan was no longer dominated by the leading families, but a city council was established to represent the entire urban community. The citizens of Perpignan thus gained rights of political participation, which they would retain throughout the fifteenth century. Not only the manner in which these changes came about, but also what these citizens did with their newly acquired power, are the subject of a meticulous study. Furthermore, Daileader also examines Perpignan's turbulent relationship with the sovereign - Perpignan is now part of France, but in the fifteenth century it was a Catalan city under the rule of the Crown of Aragon.

Although the title might suggest otherwise, the book deals less with the history of time than with the political history of the period in question. Indeed, Daileader rightly concludes that the inhabitants of fifteenth-century Perpignan were not afraid of institutional change and were well aware that political innovation was necessary to regulate changing patterns of urban life. We are therefore by no means dealing with a population that was 'waiting' for the sixteenth-century humanists to do away with an outdated worldview. To put it in the words of P. Daileader: there was a remarkable "desire for newness" (211) among the inhabitants of Perpignan, which led to an aspiration to adapt political structures to the times.

Do not, however, expect this book to be a study of how workers organised their daily routines in a medieval town or of fifteenth-century urban ordinances installing clocks to regulate the daily lives of townspeople - as, for example, Matthew Champion did in The Fullness of Time (2017) - but rather of townspeople's perception of time and - above all - how they dealt with political change. In addition, Nils Bock and Elodie Lecuppre-Desjardin focused on a similar topic in a book published around the same time as Daileader's study (Innovation and medieval communities, Turnhout: Brepols 2025) - allowing us to compare Daileader's findings with those of others; I will come back to this.

A key finding by Daileader is that political innovation in cities was a bottom-up process. Certainly, in the historiography of French cities, the notion that local lords or the king had a decisive influence on the formation of urban institutions still prevails. Indeed, in Perpignan too, the composition of political governing bodies could not be altered without the approval of rulers, "but the initiative for change consistently came from below, not above" (91). The establishment of the so-called 'Nou regiment' in 1403 or of the 'Nova forma' of the city council in 1449, in which craft guilds played an important role in the election process for city council members, came about after the citizens had requested it. The 'design' of the urban institutions was thus a bottom-up initiative - in contrast to the institutional changes in nearby cities such as Montpellier and Narbonne. Unfortunately, this book does not draw a comparison with the historiography of the latter towns (where are the publications by Pierre Chastang, Vincent Challet, Patrick Gilli, etc.?) - but it is striking that Perpignan has a distinct history. Daileader's greatest achievement, however, is that historians now have an excellent study at their disposal to add the history of Perpignan in particular - and the way in which its citizens shaped their institutions - to that rich array of ways in which townspeople interacted with their authorities.

One point of criticism, however, concerns the contextualisation of this study. Not only does the reader of this book search in vain for a comparison of Perpignan's political history with that of other cities in southern France, but the broader history of European cities is also left out of the picture. Consulting works on the late medieval history of other European towns would indeed have better enabled the author to qualify claims that the political changes in Perpignan were relatively unique. For example, on page 40, Daileader states that, as a result of the institutional reforms in the first half of the fifteenth century, representatives of the craftsmen managed to secure the majority of the town council's seats, "thereby giving tradespeople access to political power in a way rarely seen in late medieval Europe". That claim is incorrect, as this was already the case in many European cities: in the Holy Roman Empire, for example, political regimes had long been in power that granted craftsmen extensive representation - or even total political dominance. In cities such as Strasbourg, Augsburg and Cologne, the political power of the guilds (the so-called 'Zünfte') was firmly institutionalised. As early as the beginning of the fourteenth century, representatives of the textile guilds in some northern French cities (Saint-Omer and Tournai) acquired the right to elect aldermen. In the Low Countries (in cities such as Bruges, Brussels and Utrecht), there were institutional bodies consisting mainly of tradespeople, and so on.

Daileader compares the situation in Perpignan solely with that in Barcelona - concluding that money, above all, is a crucial factor (89). In particular, the payment of large sums to the sovereign would explain why the citizens of Perpignan gained significant influence over the administration, but the question remains as to why the inhabitants of Barcelona - who were, after all, also very wealthy - did not proceed with the same 'quid pro quo'? A more thorough comparison between, on the one hand, the causes that historians cite as an explanation for why citizens in other European cities succeeded in gaining political power and, on the other hand, the reasons they highlight for why this did not happen in other cities, might have helped Daileader to explain the situation in Perpignan more effectively than is the case now.

This critical remark does not, of course, detract from my appreciation of this outstanding study. The fact that historians now have an excellent study at their disposal to compare the situation in Perpignan with other case studies justifies the presence of this book in many university libraries.

Jelle Haemers