Self-Help from the Middle Ages

“Self-Help from the Middle Ages 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 Traveler’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.”
–Simon Blackburn, author of Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy

“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.
–Irina Dumitrescu, writer and Professor of Medieval English, University of Bonn

“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.”
–Nick Vincent, Professor of Medieval History, University of East Anglia

“In the fine tradition of medieval confessional writing, Self-Help from the Middle Ages examines the ways in which voices from the past can help us navigate our present-day struggles, no matter what they may be. Combining thoughtful scholarship, timeless wisdom, and aching vulnerability, Peter Jones reminds us that the one constant in history is the beautiful complexity of the human heart.”
–Danièle Cybulskie, author and host of The Medieval Podcast

“Self-Help from the Middle Ages manages to be two wondrous things at once: a dazzling tour of medieval moral theology and a riveting guide to that era’s lessons for our contemporary lives. Beautifully written and brilliantly conceived, Jones’ book will delight readers with its erudition, relevance, and wisdom.”
–Bruce Holsinger, author of Culpability and The Invention of Fire

“A thoughtful exploration of medieval ideas – and how they can illuminate a modern life. A lovely book in which personal reflections and historical insights from the Middle Ages are woven together to look at emotion, desire and self-understanding.”
–Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads and professor of Global History at Oxford University

“This book is brimming with exceptional insight into the lives and minds of medieval people, but it also offers a glimpse into the magic of a historian’s practice. Personal and deeply thoughtful, it is an ode to medieval history and its possibilities in the modern day.”
–Helen Carr, author of Sceptred Isle

“Funny and profound. Offers help from across the ages to very modern concerns. A mind cleanse and an antidote to Instagram, it makes us feel relieved we’re all human after all. A great book.”
–Xand van Tulleken

‘‘The history… is first- rate. Jones is a thoughtful, well- travelled scholar with a hugely impressive command of archival material across Europe. He is also an astute art historian and a good storyteller with an eye for a killer image.”
–Dan Jones, bestselling author of The Plantagenets and The Templars, in Sunday Times (UK)

“Jones, a medieval historian, shows us that the High and Later Middle Ages (1100 to 1500, roughly) were every bit as goofy as we are about human nature and behavior. . . . Jones takes [the seven deadly sins] one by one, a chapter for each, arguing that this gnarly old taxonomy represents not only a timeless decoction of human wisdom but something of a moral map for our present wanderings. . . . I experienced a surge in understanding as to the nature of sin itself.”
–The Atlantic

“Exhilarating. . . . His scholarship is as deep as the Mariana Trench, but he bears it like thistledown. He is never pompous, and his book is funny, informative, even optimistic. It seems that our ancestors really were very like us, only a good deal wiser. We could learn a lot from them, and this is the perfect place to start.”
–The Financial Times

“Peter Jones’s Self-Help from the Middle Ages . . . is a creative blend of memoir, travelogue and history, and it never bogs down despite the unfamiliarity and abundance of material. . . . The way Jones connects the past to the present is uniquely personal and vivid. . . . Jones [is] an exceptional scholar and incisive, colorful writer.”
–Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“In this wonderful, eye-opening book, historian Peter Jones guides us through pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony and lust, showing what they meant to ordinary (and some not so ordinary) people. . . . Jones is brilliant company and a wonderful teacher who can smoothly guide one through the often bewildering world of the Middle Ages. If taking medieval advice is at all responsible for the affable character of this delightful historian, then no doubt we should all be following his example.”
–Mail on Sunday

“Jones’s book is a witty, thoughtful excavation of how medieval society understood emotional life, and how seriously it took the problem of being human.”
–Tatler

“A moving, eloquent and important book, reclaiming centuries of subtle psychological thought, and with it the emotional lives of our medieval ancestors, from the permafrost of modern contempt.”
–The Spectator

“Self-Help from the Middle Ages by Peter Jones pleasantly surprised us with how much we learned using a medieval lens on modern self-help.”
–The Honey Pop

“Historian Jones debuts with an illuminating and eclectic survey of how medieval thinkers grappled with perennial psychological challenges through the framework of the seven deadly sins. . . . This captivates.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A scholarly and forgiving rethinking of problematic behavior for a world sketched by psychology and secularism.”
–Kirkus Reviews