In the late thirteenth century European craftsmen devised the verge-and-foliot escapement, which let a falling weight drive a geared mechanism in regular steps, producing the first true mechanical clocks. These were soon installed in the towers of churches, town halls and market squares across Europe, often striking a bell on the hour for the whole community. Unlike sundials and water clocks, they ran day and night in all weather and divided the day into equal hours. Many early examples were prestige civic monuments as much as timekeepers.
Public tower clocks imposed a single, shared, mechanical time on urban populations, synchronising markets, wage labour, curfews and worship around a central civic landmark and helping reorder the rhythm of city life.