To begin with, we need to recognize different kinds of time. There is natural, experiential time through which we maintain a continuous, narrative flow of sensations in context. This is strongly associated with the right hemisphere of the brain. Damage to the right posterior cortex can cause a loss of this continuous time and impair the ability to understand narratives. McGilchrist likens this to Capgras Syndome, also caused by right hemispheric deficits. In the case of Capgras, the same individual seen at different times in different moods or with a different haircut is perceived as a different person, usually an impostor (McGilchrist, 54). The person affected with Capgras sees only differences and cannot properly connect other people seen in different contexts or times. Individuals with damage to the right posterior cortex, likewise, often cannot connect things that happen at different times or even sequentially.
The second kind of time, time experienced as discrete units (hours, minutes, seconds), is largely the province of the left hemisphere. The more abstract the perception of time, the more the left hemisphere is involved. Glennie and Thrift go so far as to argue there are many different kinds of clock time, depending on factors such as how important it is to know the precise time and how easily it is to get the correct time. These would still all be left-hemispheric functions, I believe, and greater precision should be generally related to greater abstraction. Likewise, linear time appears to be a more abstract experience than cyclical time. It arises as a major point of view only in a few societies, and it primarily associated with the monotheistic religions of the Middle East and Europe.
Prior to 1300, time for most people was cyclical and continuous (Berman, 306, notes 7 & 9). Linear time was part of Christianity, but was primarily of interest to clerics. Even the yearly cycle of saint's days and feasts, drawn from the linear history of Christianity, would have reinforced the cycle of the seasons.
In the thirteenth century, before the spread of clocks, civil statutes and other documents expressed time in terms of the sun and the canonical hours (such as Prime, Terce, Sext, and None, which varied in length according to the season) that were rung on church bells. By the early fourteenth century, at Bristol, regulations of the port, market, and trade were using the standardized (unvarying) hours struck by a clock (Glennie and Thrift, 172). By the end of the century, artisans were also denoting time in this way in depositions. Less than a century later, clock time was common in correspondence (173) and it was not uncommon to record important events down to the quarter of an hour (181 & n. 60).
So what can we make of all this. Obviously men and women did not suddenly lose their sense of continuous, narrative time. Over the course of these two centuries, and the two that followed (when minutes and seconds first became important, they were gradually developing that portion of the left brain associated with abstract time and abstract analysis to a greater degree than in the past. I believe this happened across the board, from peasants to kings. This goes along with many other aspects of the Renaissance information revolution, although other aspects of it ran in the contrary direction. Because human perception of time is so central to understanding the world, it is critical to our ability to comprehend the minds and perceptions of our ancestors. We cannot build up a nuance portrait without this kind of knowledge.
Sources:
Paul Glennie and Nigel Thrift, "Revolutions in the Times," in David N. Livingstone and Charles W.J. Withers, eds., Geography and Revolution. University of Chicago Press, 2005, 161-198.
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. Yale University Press, 2009.
Morris Berman, The Reenchantment of the World. Cornell University Press, 1981.
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