Peter Jones

The Seven Deadly Sins is one of the most compelling medieval history books I have ever read. It does what I feel all good history books should do – it informs us about ourselves; it does not just tell us stories about the long-since dead. It will tantalise and delight those who think they know everything there is to know about the medieval mindset as well as those who cannot imagine that there were once different ways of thinking. I genuinely loved this book.

Ian Mortimer, author of The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England

This book came as a wonderful surprise. Peter Jones, a learned historian, combines self-help, the middle ages, and autobiographical confessions and somehow weaves a tapestry that triumphantly relates all three. In particular, he highlights the subtlety and psychological insights in medieval writers, whose wise treatments of disorderly desires have helped him to navigate his own life, and could help any of us to do the same.

From Lucifer's iridescent footwear, to supermarket shopping in Vladimir Putin's Siberia, this is a unique and delightful book: part personal memoir, part investigation of the very idea of sin, part magical mystery tour through some of the world's greater medieval book collections. I can think of nothing else quite like it. Written by an acknowledged expert, yet with the thrill of a treasure hunt, it blows the cobwebs off centuries in which, however virtuous those in pursuit of goodness, the Devil always had the best tunes.

Peter Jones’ Self-Help from the Middle Ages is a treat for the history glutton. Funny, candid, and revelatory, it shows how medieval thinkers struggled with the same quirks of the human condition as we do. I loved following Jones on his quest to decode the medieval recipe for a contented life, whether it was to a classroom in Siberia, a library in London, or a Spanish cathedral claiming to house the Holy Grail. Jones makes the Middle Ages feel close enough to touch – and its lessons are needed now more than ever.

A Journey Into the Medieval Mind

What can a twelfth-century monk teach us about burnout, envy, or despair? Far more than we might imagine. In Self-Help from the Middle Ages, historian Peter Jones travels through Europe’s archives and libraries to uncover a lost psychology: a world where confession was therapy, sin was diagnosis, and the Seven Deadly Sins served as a map of the human mind. 
 
From the deserts of Egypt to the Vatican Library, from Dante’s Florence to Catherine of Siena’s cell, Jones introduces the thinkers, mystics and rebels who wrestled with the same questions that preoccupy us now: how to live with our flaws, forgive ourselves, and find meaning amid confusion. 
 
Medieval lives and landscapes come vividly alive: Siberian winters and Parisian manuscripts, lustful saints and anxious scholars, candlelit abbeys and vaults of forgotten books. Wise, surprising, and deeply humane, Self-Help from the Middle Ages reveals that the remedies we seek for our 21st-century anxieties may have been with us all along—written in brown Gothic ink on lambskin seven hundred years ago.

Peter Jones

Praise for Self-Help From the Middle Ages

The Seven Deadly Sins is one of the most compelling medieval history books I have ever read. It does what I feel all good history books should do – it informs us about ourselves; it does not just tell ...

This book came as a wonderful surprise. Peter Jones, a learned historian, combines self-help, the middle ages, and autobiographical confessions and somehow weaves a tapestry that triumphantly relates all t ...

From Lucifer's iridescent footwear, to supermarket shopping in Vladimir Putin's Siberia, this is a unique and delightful book: part personal memoir, part investigation of the very idea of sin, part magical my ...

The Seven Deadly Sins is one of the most compelling medieval history books I have ever read. It does what I feel all good history books should do – it informs us about ourselves; it does not just tell ...

This book came as a wonderful surprise. Peter Jones, a learned historian, combines self-help, the middle ages, and autobiographical confessions and somehow weaves a tapestry that triumphantly relates all t ...

From Lucifer's iridescent footwear, to supermarket shopping in Vladimir Putin's Siberia, this is a unique and delightful book: part personal memoir, part investigation of the very idea of sin, part magical my ...

The Seven Deadly Sins is one of the most compelling medieval history books I have ever read. It does what I feel all good history books should do – it informs us about ourselves; it does not just tell ...

This book came as a wonderful surprise. Peter Jones, a learned historian, combines self-help, the middle ages, and autobiographical confessions and somehow weaves a tapestry that triumphantly relates all t ...

From Lucifer's iridescent footwear, to supermarket shopping in Vladimir Putin's Siberia, this is a unique and delightful book: part personal memoir, part investigation of the very idea of sin, part magical my ...

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