The Seven Deadly Sins

Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Gluttony, Envy, Wrath! You might be surprised to learn the true history of the Seven Deadly Sins doesn't start in the bible. Rather, they were first thought up by a Greek monk in the 4th century who'd fled to the desert after becoming embroiled in a scandal with a married woman… Dan is joined by historian and author Peter Jones to trace the true history of the Seven Deadly Sins, why they took the Middle Ages by storm, and how they have shaped European society for centuries. You can learn more in Peter's new book, ' Self Help from the Middle Ages: What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us About Living' Produced by Mariana Des Forges, McKenna Fernandez and James Hickmann. Edited by Matthew Wilson We need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6 Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcast Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Snow?

  Hey friends, if you love this podcast and want to decide what history we cover, then you need to become a Dan Snow's History Hit subscriber. Pitch your topic and if I like it, we'll make it into a subscriber exclusive episode. So far, we've covered the English Reformation, the Hudson Bay Company, the Trail of Tears, all of which have been decided by dedicated subscribers. So take the reins of your favourite podcast by heading over to historyhit.com/subscribe or sign up in your podcast player. Lust, gluttony, wrath, pride, envy, sloth, greed. Seven deadly sins, the root of human evil, at least according to medieval Christianity.

• 0:45Dan Snow?

  Now, don't worry, this isn't going to be a religious sermon, I'm certainly not qualified to admit to that, but instead, I might be able to soothe your anxiety, soothe your soul with a bit of a history lesson. You will be surprised to learn that the seven deadly sins aren't in the Bible. They were thought up by a Greek monk, really, in the 4th century, who fled to the Egyptian desert after becoming embroiled in a scandal with a married woman. There, isolated, doing some mindfulness, the monk Evagrius Ponticus began to map the darkest patterns of the human mind. And he came up with what would become the seven deadly sins. By the Middle Ages, people were obsessed with them.

• 1:30Dan Snow?

  They were painted into murals, they appeared in sermons, in popular literature. It was believed that of those seven deadly sins, everyone had one in particular that they had to work on, a weakness that revealed who they truly were. In this episode of Dan Snow's History Hit, I've been told that I'm going to find out what my particular sin is, which I'm really looking forward to, and I'm really looking forward to sharing it with all of you. I'm being joined by the expert, the historian Peter Jones, who's just written a new book, Self-Help from the Middle Ages: What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us About Living. We're going to delve into them, we're going to talk about sin, and we're going to look

• 2:13Dan Snow?

  into the history of this religious and cultural phenomenon. It was a system of control, sure. It was a system of working out how people could live alongside each other in society. We're going to find out how the medieval mind understood human behaviour and psychology. Enjoy.

• 2:37Dan Snow?

  Pete, thanks for coming on.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Thank you. What a pleasure.

• 2:39Dan Snow?

  Well, we get a pleasure to be talking, wallowing in sin is what we're going to be doing, in a good way. There used to be eight though, tell me, this is news to me.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Well, it's true, right. They were once the, they weren't the eight deadly sins, they were once the eight generic thoughts, which is a terrible title for a book.

• 2:54Dan Snow?

  See why I didn't catch on.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  No, you didn't catch on. Yeah, the origin is kind of strange. It begins in a political scandal. A guy called Evagrius Ponticus, who was a politician from the Black Sea coast, what is now Turkey. There's a sex scandal.

• 3:07Dan Snow?

  What period are we talking about?

• 3:08Speaker 01

  We're talking about the late 300s.

• 3:10Dan Snow?

  Okay, so Roman Empire still reasonably coherent?

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Writing in Greek, politics happening in Constantinople, sex scandal, Evagrius loses his career and sort of wanders off into oblivion. And he kind of, he's depressed, he's despondent, it's a midlife crisis. He drifts down to the desert just outside Alexandria.

• 3:28Dan Snow?

  Classic.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Well, everyone was doing it. Everyone was doing it. Well.

• 3:31Dan Snow?

  This is just a well-trodden path.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  We would call them now monks, but at the time it didn't have a label like this really. These were lost souls who were looking for a radical experiment in living. And they moved to the desert, about two days' walk outside of Alexandria, and they'd build these little cells, you know, far away from each other, close enough you could wave and see someone waving but not see their facial expressions. It's kind of lonely. Evagrius was one of these. Spent his day weaving baskets, watching the sunrise and set, and trying to, you know, it's mindfulness really, you know, thinking a lot, contemplating, meditating. Evagrius puts himself through a load of experiments. He stands in freezing cold water, he sort of flagellates himself, but he also decides he's going to do a mind experiment. He's

• 4:14Speaker 01

  going to write down every tempting, negative, difficult thought in this enormous thing which he later publishes as a book which we call Talking Back. And in that book, and some of these thoughts are really petty. "I miss the cup I used to hold in my hand", you know. "I miss, I miss my life. I miss my family's olive grove in Iborra on the Black Sea." And he decided, when he got all of these thoughts written down, they all belonged in eight sort of categories.

• 4:36Dan Snow?

  Nice.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Eight buckets, and these he called the eight generic thoughts.

• 4:40Dan Snow?

  And which, so are they rough, have they transmogrified into the deadly sins? Or which is the one that we've dropped?

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Okay, so there were, for Avagrius, there were two things that we now call pride. There's pride and vainglory. Pride is kind of this ego, this inward thing, your self-esteem being too high or whatever. And vainglory is boasting, basically, so it's like bragging.

• 5:01Dan Snow?

  Okay, just an out, that's the outward manifestation of it. So we've merged those together?

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he also had two kind of sadness sins. He had sloth and sadness. Sloth, which he called arcadia, which is lack of care, and sadness, which is just total misery, despair.

• 5:16Dan Snow?

  And did these go viral? I mean, where did we get seven deadly sins from?

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Okay, so it's a great idea, and Avagrius practices it himself, but, you know, it's in the desert at that point. There's a guy called John Cassian who comes to the desert, and he's been tasked with finding something to popularise. He's basically, he needs to preach to peasants in the French countryside, and he needs to make a book. There's a timeline, come on, you know, get people involved, get them engaged in thinking about reforming their lives, becoming more moral.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  John Cassian goes to the desert and discovers Avagrius's system and thinks, this is fantastic, this is dynamite, but he thinks it needs a tweak, and it's just what you said at the beginning, generic thoughts, it's not so good, it's not so catchy. Cassian calls them deadly sins.

• 5:55Dan Snow?

  You say system, he's identified these, what, is it like intrusive thoughts and then dealing with them? What's the system beyond identifying all the difference?

• 6:03Speaker 01

  So the idea is that your brain works this way, no matter who you are, no matter how good you are, these are the eight patterns of thought that tempt you every single day. So pride, that's, you know, a kind of egotistical tendency, you know, or self-belief, you know, at its sort of more modest degree, you know, I'm pretty good at this, I'm excellent at making coffee, you know, maybe other people want to share my coffee, and then it goes too far, you know, I'm the best at making coffee and all other coffee is terrible. So it's kind of, they're spectrums of thought, which, I suppose they're excessive thoughts, you know, have none of these and you are an angel, you're not really human at all, but, you know, start to think along these pathways of ego, desire, appetite, that's, those are

• 6:46Speaker 01

  things that make us human, these kinds of tempting thoughts.

• 6:50Dan Snow?

  And once you've identified them, what you can just by speaking of them, you can help to combat them. That's the idea.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Well, there are different approaches. For Evagrius, the goal was to eradicate them all in himself. He wanted to reach a state he called apotheia, which is to feel none of these things. Like it's water off a duck's back. He would be in a true state of bliss where he felt no temptation or desire. But, you know, as we can discuss throughout the Middle Ages, I think this wasn't the model that really survives best. The model that survives best is a really compassionate model, which is accepting these things. Okay, we all feel these temptations. How do we moderate them and make them work for us to do something better for other people? How do we, how do we kind of sculpt and tame these tempting thoughts into something that works for a wider community?

• 7:37Dan Snow?

  This might be the wrong question. You are a historian. When you were writing, we'll get on, we'll keep going through the history, but I'm interested in the philosophy of it. If you compare it to other cultures, other belief systems, do you think, as someone who's now immersed yourself, do you think it's actually, was it a useful process to go through? Do you think these stand up? I mean, I recognize them all in myself as well. And the responses, of course, are going to be different depending on the context, the society, whether it's punitive. But do you admire that original thought leadership?

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Oh, I absolutely do. I think it really works. I mean, like you say, I recognize them all in myself all the time. And I cannot open a newspaper without seeing, you know, everything scans on to one of the deadly sins. I can't, I can't find a single species of human, you know, wrongdoing or whatever, or, you know, even right doing, that doesn't, you know, come back to one of these seven things. I see them as the periodic table of the mind. I think they diagnose this kind of periodic table of desire and impulse that still stands up and still works. Yeah.

• 8:39Dan Snow?

  So useful, whatever your belief system today, quite useful to be aware of these and recognize it in yourself and others.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  No, I think they were on to something. Yeah.

• 8:47Dan Snow?

  Okay, so we got, so following this sort of rebrand, we are down to our canonical seven, which let's go through it again.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Okay, so it's pride at the top, always number one, the worst of the deadly sins.

• 8:59Dan Snow?

  Is that number one?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Always one, always number one, yes. Pride is the root cause of all other sin. Because what? Because pride is...

• 9:05Dan Snow?

  Because that's...

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Well, it's turning away from other people. It's kind of believing you can stand alone. It's isolating yourself and saying, I don't need any of this. I don't need other people. And that, therefore, that kind of selfish impulse, that turning away, can allow and open the floodgate for all these other things. Of course, I can eat more. Who cares? You know, my judgment is the only judgment.

• 9:25Dan Snow?

  Of course, I can take from my neighbour because it's...

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 9:28Dan Snow?

  Yeah, okay.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Exactly. And then we have envy and anger. And then in the middle, sloth, which is the enigmatic one. We'll have to come on to it because sloth is a terrible translation. That's not what this sin really is. Then we have the three lesser sins, avarice, gluttony, and then lust. They're all deadly, but you know, there is a hierarchy.

• 9:46Dan Snow?

  I didn't know the hierarchy. That's interesting.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  But they didn't become this seven and they didn't get this hierarchy until Pope Gregory the Great.

• 9:52Dan Snow?

  Ah, Gregory's fingerprints are on everything.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Everything. This is Edi 604, to give context. But Gregory recognised that Cassian's system was, you know, really effective, really worked. And he kind of, but he trimmed them down and he added envy. So envy wasn't there before.

• 10:07Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  And it's interesting, these early desert monks, you know, if you're far enough away from your neighbour that you can't really see their facial expressions, you can see why for a vagaries envy wasn't a big part of his life.

• 10:16Dan Snow?

  I do not envy anyone around me.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  No, no, no, exactly. Whereas sadness, he had two of those. So it's kind of interesting.

• 10:21Dan Snow?

  Okay. So the church hierarchy have grabbed this. Why? This is what just helpful way to control the behaviours, the mindsets of the flock? I mean, what's this?

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Well, at first, it's a curio. You know, it's an academic thing.

• 10:34Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  But for Gregory, he's trying to do this. It's this enormous work, the Moralia and Job. It's just this massive, massive cumbersome work, actually, if we're honest. If we're critical with Gregory, sorry. He's going, it's like an encyclopedia. He's going through every possible approach. And he is trying to write something which can be like, yeah, an encyclopedia for priests to find something, you know, to pick and grab and choose little bits that will be useful in preaching or talking to their flock.

• 10:58Dan Snow?

  So this is your manual. Here, priest, this is what we want. Is it everything we know about human beings? What we should be like? Okay, fine. And so he's handing that out. Okay. So this is a gigantic attempt to lay out a kind of moral religious framework for Christianity.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  It's true, but it doesn't really get going until the sort of late 1000s with what we call the Gregorian Reform, which is this process. This is when priests, theologians get really serious, popes especially, get really serious about the mission of the church, which is to reform society as a whole. And one historian, Jonathan Riley Smith, I think, described it as, the Pope's goal at this point was to make every individual citizen in the whole of Christendom into a kind of monk themselves, to monasticise everyone, to make everyone have the same level of dedication and commitment to the faith that a monk would have. It's a hugely ambitious project, and that really gets going in the 1070s onwards. That's when we have clerical celibacy, priests aren't allowed to have sex.

• 11:52Dan Snow?

  Yes, I was gonna say, that's when that sort of comes up.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so it's getting serious. Before this process of Gregorian Reform, you have priests who are just, you know, somebody from the local community wanted the job a lot of the time, and it's a bit venal, you know, oh, my brother said I could do this, I'm gonna be priest. After this, it becomes much more strict, you know, they need to be trained, they need to be educated. There's a real self-conscious objective to sort of change the church and make everyone invested.

• 12:17Dan Snow?

  And so, in, I'm just wondering, so in the way that sort of King James organises a Bible to be read by people in vernacular, in English, and this is the church going, right, we've got these seven editions, this is quite a useful thing for people to be able to cling on to and sort of organise their faith and their life around, their personal confession.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, the real moment comes in 1215, which, you know, for medievalists, huge year, but, you know, but not for Magna Carta. Very important, I mean, in measure it'd be important, but for a lot of us, even bigger event is, happens in November, which is the Fourth Lateran Council. Doesn't sound as fun, but it changes.

• 12:54Dan Snow?

  But go on.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  It changes so much. You know, for example, the Mass, you know, the bread becomes the body of Christ.

• 13:00Dan Snow?

  That's right, that's interesting.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  That's instantiated in law in the Fourth Lateran Council. All of these rules about heresy, legislation on Jews having to wear special marking clothes on their clothing is in Fourth Lateran Council. You know, all kinds of things, you know. Terrible and, you know, productive in different ways. Start there. It's this enormous effort. They bring all of the bishops, major priests, cardinals, everyone to Rome for this big conference, basically. And they lay out this series of what they call canons or laws. And one of them is that every single person must make confession once a year. Everyone who's reached the age of reason, so has to make.

• 13:38Dan Snow?

  We're still waiting for that.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  No, no, yeah. So where do we, is that fourteen? Twenty seven. So it's now mandatory to make a confession once a year. And these confessions, suddenly priests have to get really serious. Okay, God, you know, previously, no one's really doing these confessions. Well, people are, the really enthusiastic people. But suddenly it's mandatory, it's everyone. I've got hundreds and hundreds of people in my flock. But these can be long sessions of going through, you know, tell me about your year. How's your ego been? You know, what things have you done terribly? They have to get serious and they need manuals to do this.

• 14:10Dan Snow?

  Right. This is the checklist.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:12Dan Snow?

  So the seven deadly sins, over, so more important than the ten commandments in a way. I mean.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  Well, it's more practical because, you know, it's a way to examine your kind of, your inner thought process. And in the way that ten commandments, you know, have you coveted your neighbor's ox? No, I didn't do that.

• 14:28Dan Snow?

  I have not created a graven image, so I'm all right.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. You can let yourself off the hook quite easily with the ten commandments. But the seven deadly sins are a way to really get into your inner core. And that's what I love about the system. Because at its core, this is a way to examine your kind of, your, those tiny little awkward, half-formed thoughts. You know, I did kind of, when I, when I made that coffee for my friend and, you know, I was trying to impress him a little bit. I was trying to, you know, I was, you know, that, that kind of self-knowledge, self-awareness, like, am I doing these things for the wrong reasons sometimes, you know? Do I actually secretly want my friend not to get that job when he has the interview on Friday? Because part of me is still jealous in some residual way. You know, obviously, no, the answer is no, for me.

• 15:13Dan Snow?

  Of course it is. Oh, of course it is.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  But, you know, there is that kind of, the seven deadly sins are a doorway into thinking about these kind of tiny little ways that we, that we, you know, these little tics that we have, you know, these impulses, right at the bottom, I think, right at the core of our brains.

• 15:28Dan Snow?

  You're listening to Dan Snow's History. We'll be back after this break. This episode is brought to you by Deckagon. If you've ever been trapped in phone tree hell, pushing zero 50 times while a voice robot pretends not to hear you, you know true psychological warfare. It's brutal, folks. Thankfully, that kind of horror is now confined to the history books. Customer service has evolved. Deckagon helps companies create personalized, concierge-style customer experiences with AI agents across chat, email, voice, and SMS. They're available 24/7, feel natural to talk to, and can resolve customer requests on their own, so businesses can keep up with requests without losing their personal touch.

• 16:10Dan Snow?

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• 16:55Dan Snow?

  saucers to let it cool before drinking it. I love that sort of discovery, a detail, but suddenly you're imagining how people lived and drank and socialized. Now I wonder what all baffled historians about us: mugs. It's a ceramic vessel, but crucially, it has a handle. Well, that's the joy of TikTok, folks. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, host of Echoes of History, the podcast that plunges you into the ranks of the Knights Templar across ancient Egypt and behind the barricades of history's great revolutions to explore the worlds recreated in Assassin's Creed. In our new series, Chasing Shadows, we're in feudal Japan alongside samurai, warlords, and shinobi spies. Whether you're gearing up for Assassin's Creed: Shadows or captivated by Japan's rich history, this podcast, brought to you by Ubisoft and History Hit, is a must-listen. Chasing Shadows is out now on the Echoes of History podcast.

• 18:14Dan Snow?

  And so they, so now from in the 13th century onwards, that's when they, well, they started appearing in art, in a sort of popular, the popular imagination latches on to these things.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Completely. They just, they just take off exponentially after 1215 because priests need tech handbooks. My God, right, I've got to make all of these confessions. I've got hundreds and hundreds of parishioners. I need a guidebook. So guidebooks get written. And these guidebooks often have the seven deadly sins right at the heart. You know, this is the core template. There's a theologian who was asked in the 1200s by a group of women who came to him, theologian's called Raoul, and these women say, give us moral advice. He turns straight to the seven deadly sins. Okay, here's your template. Let's start with pride, then envy, then anger. So they become the structuring framework for, for all kinds of discussions about people's wellbeing, people's morality. So then we have all these handbooks and you go into any library in Europe, any archive of medieval

• 19:10Speaker 01

  manuscripts, open any manuscript at random, the chances are you're going to see the seven deadly sins somewhere there. Honestly, I know that sounds bizarre. It's scrawled in the margins. I found them, I found treatises on the seven deadly sins used as the binding for manuscripts. There must have been so many of these texts that you could just say, okay, we'll use one of those. They just burst in popularity. We also have preaching. So we have preachers giving sermons on, and that becomes more and more popular in the 1200s. And so many of these sermons, the words that come up over and over again, pride, envy, lust, avarice.

• 19:42Dan Snow?

  And very interesting because they don't appear in the Gospels. I mean, they sort of, obviously rooted, of course, in the teachings of Jesus and the Gospels and the Ten Commandments. But this is a, this is a sort of fascinating, it's central, becomes central to Christianity. And yet, I mean, I guess Jesus does occasionally speak out against sloth, but it feels, it feels that they've got a prominence that, that, you know, society created these rather than perhaps the founding fathers of the Christian faith.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  And, and that's what's great about medieval Christianity. It's so interesting when you dig. They made this whole folklore, this mythology, which is way outside of the Bible. And for example, Judas, right? Judas, there are stories of Judas where he, it's like Oedipus. He marries his mother and kills his father, you know, they, they make these. Lucifer only appears really briefly in the Bible, but there's this huge folklore and mythology about him. There are plays about him and the seven deadly sins belong to that. There are this kind of extratextual fun apparatus which develops as a way to kind of, yeah. It's embellishing and, you know, it's building on the kind of the core of the Bible.

• 20:42Dan Snow?

  You, you, I just want, you said sloth is a, is a, was it, was the mistranslated one? That's, I'm interested in that as a slothful person. Let me know, let me know if perhaps I'm not sinful as I think.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Well, it's my sin as well, perhaps. And sloth is, the original Greek word was akadia, right? Which means something like lack of care. And in the Middle Ages, they never translated it into Latin. They left it as akadia because they couldn't come up with the right word. What does it mean? It's somewhere between inertia, depression, what we might call now depression, boredom, restlessness. It's kind of, okay, so what is it? And it's described by William Peraldas in this Summer of Vices that it's like you're standing in a freezing cold river and the water's rushing towards you, but you can't move.

• 21:25Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  It's a sense of falling out of love with all the things that used to light up your life. Elizabeth of Shownow, who's this nun from the 12th century in the Rhineland. She describes her akadia this way. She used to love being a nun, everything about it, the reading, the singing, all of it, perfect. One day she's late for mass and suddenly, when the singing starts, her lips move, but the voice doesn't come out. And she goes to read a book later and she can't get through a page, puts it down. It's all, nothing. Everything that used to make her heart sing now leaves her feeling cold and dead inside. This is Akkadia. It's when all the love we've built up for something is inverted inside us and suddenly we feel the weight of its absence. It's a, so I mean, people

• 22:08Speaker 01

  have described it as a bit like depression. There's a great book by a guy called Andrew Solomon called The Noonday Demon, where he says Akkadia, basically he maps it onto depression. I think he's right. It is kind of the medieval language of depression, but it's more than that as well. It's also burnout. It's also a sense of directionlessness.

• 22:27Dan Snow?

  Yeah. So as you're saying this, I'm wondering if the, I'm being very coarse, but is there a sort of Darwinian, I mean, with these, if you're a medieval person or a, you're tilling the land, actually, this is a pretty decent list, because if you do feel that inertia and that sort of that burnout, you know, you're not going to prepare the, you're not going to prepare the ground for the next year's harvest. I mean, this is, it is, they're quite useful sins to be aware of and sort of live by, right? If you are too proud, you might get bumped on the head by, by, by the community that think you're a pain in the arse, all that sort of stuff.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  It's completely true. And actually, yeah, William of Prouder says that sloth is when you take your hand from the plough. So they're always thinking in terms that are relate to the ordinary person in a situation. Yeah, I think, but having said that, I can't think of a single human situation where these aren't relevant. They kind of, they map onto anything. I mean, Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, made a speech where he talks about, you know, Silicon Valley thrives on the seven deadly sins. And he said, every great app, every great product that Silicon Valley develops, it's going to be great if it maps onto one of these sins, if it exploits it, you know. We could give examples, but.

• 23:30Dan Snow?

  Yeah, well, there's plenty that I'm sure if I can come up with. That's interesting. Okay. Now, is there a, we're making this sound quite benign, quite good life architecture. Do things in the way that they tend to do in the hands of human beings, do they get warped, distorted? Does it become a kind of, people getting called out, some sort of punitive, there's a punitive aspect to this?

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. I think at their worst, you know, this is a tool to sort of, you know, hit people with, you know, and some, there were, you know, there's bad theology out there. There are bad, there are texts that say, you know, you should live completely Completely without, you know, ego or completely without, you know, anger, you know, best to just, you know, fight these things and eradicate them. And then punishing people, yeah, there'll be penances that you have to do. Okay, right, you were too angry, you know, here's your penance. But generally, no, the thing that strikes me is that those are in the minority, those kind of extremist kind of texts. The majority of texts are really understanding and compassionate. You know, I think Dante, you know, died in thirteen twenty one, didn't he? You know, Dante's Purgatorio puts it best, right?

• 24:33Speaker 01

  In Dante's Camadia, which goes through hell, purgatory and heaven, who gets straight to paradise? Only the saints, really. The rest of us, okay, so the worst people go to hell, the people who don't recognize their sins, and people who just are there saying, yes, I did terrible things, but it wasn't my fault. They're all in hell, but the rest of us, I hope, I hope I count myself, are in purgatory. No matter how good you are, no matter how moral you were in your life, all the great things you did, your moral mission, you still have to purge yourself of those seven deadly sins, you know, so in Dante's purgatory, it moves up the mountain, you purge yourself of your pride, big rocks on your back, and then envy, have your eyelids stitched together.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  It's a, so the message of that is all of us have to work on these constantly, and that work is never done. The seven deadly sins are with us until we die, and then we still have to work on them.

• 25:20Dan Snow?

  When, when is peak prominence? I mean, Dan, if Dante's writing all about them, that feels like if by the fourteenth century, we are, they are culturally very dominant.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  I think thirteen hundreds, absolutely, they are everywhere, they're on, they're in church walls, you know, they're in little frescoes. Giotto paints them in the Arena Chapel in the first, and they're wonderful paintings of the sins. We have Dante, of course, Purgatorio in the thirteen tens. And then by the end of that century, we have Chaucer and someone like John Gower, who structures his Confessio Romantis all around the seven deadly sins. So the thirteen hundreds are the high point, they're everywhere, you, you can't pick up a great work of literature without seeing the sins in there.

• 25:57Dan Snow?

  Tough century, thirteen hundreds as well, I mean, I, you know, lot, lot going on.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  It really is, Black Death.

• 26:03Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Family.

• 26:04Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  No, so they needed, they needed a break, did they need to hit themselves over the head? No, I think that's why they're so compassionate, they needed the compassion of the system.

• 26:12Dan Snow?

  And yeah, sorry, compassion's important. So it's about, as you, so I came in thinking this was all going to be a little bit sort of so control vicious, using infractions to then punish. Actually, this sounds like a, it sounds like therapy. I mean, it sounds like a quite compassionate system.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  I think that's what I've tried to say in my book, Self-Help from the Middle Ages, that you can, you can use this system as a compassionate system to sort of forgive yourself in many ways and see the process of, for example, fighting your ego or fighting your laziness or fighting your kind of greed as an ongoing process and be compassionate about it. Because medieval advice is always that. We need to keep working on these things and forgive ourselves for them because they are the things that make us human.

• 26:52Dan Snow?

  And I suppose, yes, I suppose being told that this is something that makes you human and being told this is something that everybody deals with. If you're lonely and you've, you're, you're struggling, you think, why, why am I jealous of my friend getting that job on Friday? That, am I a terrible person? And the answer is no, look, this, you're, you're among, we're all, we are all feeling like that.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  And it's interesting when we think.

• 27:11Dan Snow?

  By the way, I'm very happy, am I, like you. I mean, I'm pro, pro friends getting jobs.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  No, no, me too.

• 27:15Dan Snow?

  I'm really positive about it.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  And good luck, by the way, on Friday.

• 27:18Dan Snow?

  Totally. I'm so happy that you're doing so well.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Completely. But yeah, I think Acadia is a good example of that. If, if the fourth deadly sin is really burnout, depression and all of these other things, it's one of the seven and you're making confession every year. That means everyone in Europe, you know, every Christian in Europe, rather, is talking about these things and reflecting on them and being told that this is normal, this is a normal part of humanity to feel this way and this way. So they're not framing it as a, as a mental illness or something like this. They're framing it as just an ordinary part of being human.

• 27:49Dan Snow?

  Are, are there effective when, when you're looking for self-help from the Middle Ages? What were the, cures is probably the wrong words, antidotes. What were the ways in which they said, look, we all get like this. In this particular case, this is what we recommend? Or is it just about acknowledging them, talking about them and, and being aware of them?

• 28:07Speaker 01

  No, it's case by case, but generally speaking, the answer they come up with by the late 1200s is to moderate, to and to recognise when you've gone beyond what is social.

• 28:18Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  So, for example, ego, we start with pride, right? You know, okay, so if I say, right, I'm gonna, I am a worm, I'll, you know, I'll act like that. You know, I'll just say, I can't do anything, I'm no good at everything. That's not good either. That's what Thomas Aquinas called pusillanimity, you know, weakness of spirit. You know, and you're not standing up for yourself and ultimately, therefore, you're not being useful. You know, I probably can rewire that plug, you know, I shouldn't have.

• 28:42Dan Snow?

  You've just gone and written the best book about the seven deadly sins ever pub. No, hang on, no, I've gone, I've overshot the runway.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Okay, all right, but you know, but you know, maybe there is something interesting to say. You've done some research, you've got something interesting to say.

• 28:52Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  There you go. Don't be weak of spirit, you know, go on history here, talk about it.

• 28:56Dan Snow?

  Yes.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Own it. Um, but when it becomes, you know, if I then sort of say, well, and it's fantastic and all of these other scholars, you know, they got it totally wrong.

• 29:03Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, then we're starting to push into an area where I'm going, I'm getting into that excessive place where I'm, um, I'm starting to be a bit antisocial, you know what I mean?

• 29:11Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  So the, the message of that one is to recognise when are you overestimating your own limits? When have you gone beyond self-awareness and self-knowledge? And now you're inflating and kind of inventing an alternative self, which is, um, so it's, uh, it's kind of, combating the deadly sins is all about recognising their limits, that where they go beyond a boundary that that's kind of socially acceptable.

• 29:33Dan Snow?

  And it feels like talking therapy, either with your priest or with intimates, is, is that, that is not like I'm going to administer 10 lashes and that's going to recalibrate my level of pride. It, it sounds like a very civilised way of, of, of working out where that level is.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think what they wanted was to induce self-awareness. They wanted you to talk through these seven and recognise these and work on them. I don't think they wanted you to eradicate them at all. And I think that that's kind of the surprise, you know, that medieval Christianity wasn't a system for making perfect souls, you know? Only angels are perfect, is the ideal, saints, you know? In fact, it's actually just a system for raising people's awareness and getting them to work on their kind of quirks.

• 30:14Dan Snow?

  Okay, so after the 1300s, after the 14th century, what happens to these deadly sins?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  I mean, they're still there. They're still there in literature and plays in the 1400s. The Reformation, I think, generally speaking, is kind of where they lose some of their power. You know, although there's a great emphasis on interiority in the Reformation, there just isn't that same confession doesn't have the same kind of role.

• 30:35Dan Snow?

  And because they don't appear in the Gospels, presumably Protestants are like, look, definitely read the Gospels, as you say, interiority, work on yourself, but you don't necessarily need this Gregorian checklist, presumably, is that what you're saying?

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Exactly. I mean, someone like Luther will still use these words.

• 30:51Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  And I think that they still apply. But yeah, they're not, they're part of that architecture that gets ripped away in the Reformation.

• 30:57Dan Snow?

  You're not painting them on walls.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  No, exactly.

• 30:59Dan Snow?

  Creating lovely artwork.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  And all that we said earlier about, you know, the mythology of Christianity that went beyond the text, that's being taken away. So seven deadly sins are part of that.

• 31:07Dan Snow?

  Well, Pete, very excitingly, in the spirit of therapy and living a better life, you are going to give me a quiz on the sins and my sins. So I'm really forward to this. But first of all, we're going to take a break. So join us after this.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, host of Echoes of History, the podcast that plunges you into the ranks of the Knights Templar across ancient Egypt and behind the barricades of history's great revolutions to explore the worlds recreated in Assassin's Creed. In our new series, Chasing Shadows, we're in feudal Japan alongside samurai warlords and shinobi spies. Whether you're gearing up for Assassin's Creed Shadows or captivated by Japan's rich history, this podcast, brought to you by Ubisoft and History Hit, is a must listen. Chasing Shadows is out now on the Echoes of History podcast.

• 32:09Dan Snow?

  Pete, the time has come.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:11Dan Snow?

  No more talking. In fact, lots more talking because you are going to give me a quiz.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  I am. It's rigorously scientific. It's heavily footnoted. So if listeners want to, if they want to know, I can give you detailed footnotes on why these all make sense as medieval questions. Okay, Dan, so there are five questions and, you know, do relax.

• 32:29Dan Snow?

  Yeah, super relaxing. Lots of people are about to hear my innermost, my sinful thoughts.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Okay. And as I say, these are rigorously footnoted.

• 32:37Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Which of these is the perfect afternoon? A long train journey alone with your thoughts. B, winning a game of squash. Or C, all you can eat tapas.

• 32:49Dan Snow?

  Oh my goodness.

• 32:54Dan Snow?

  I'm afraid, okay, I'm gonna say all you can eat tapas, I'm afraid.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Excellent choice. Great, okay, good, good. Question two, which of these are you most likely to collect?

• 33:03Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  A, antique clocks. B, anecdotes about your colleagues. Or C, pornographic pilgrim badges from the 14th century.

• 33:12Dan Snow?

  Wow. Well, from that really comprehensive list of options, I suppose anecdotes about my colleagues really in that one.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Okay, that's good, good answer, okay, fair enough. Question three, when you're driving, do you always follow the sat nav's advice?

• 33:27Dan Snow?

  No.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  No, okay, interesting, interesting, okay, good, good, good. Question four, for your birthday, which of these will you do? A, a hot air balloon ride over Staffordshire with mugs of hot chocolate.

• 33:41Dan Snow?

  Sounds good.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  B, an hour with the punch bag in the garage, then go for a hot stone massage. Or C, finally buy that monogrammed silk kimono.

• 33:51Dan Snow?

  Well, that's a hard one. These are quite random. Given that choice, goodness me, I would actually, I think this is a bit manosphere coming, I think I might do the punch bag, actually.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Okay, good, good, good.

• 34:02Dan Snow?

  I mean, I like hot air balloon, but.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Okay, right, and now totting up, okay, good, we're in a good place.

• 34:06Dan Snow?

  Thank goodness.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Okay, right, so we're now gonna do the quotation. These are all quotations from medieval guidebooks on the sins. So these are all quotations. So I wanna know which of these medieval quotations feels most accurate these days.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  "I do not fear my enemies, they will be crushed."

• 34:25Dan Snow?

  Whoa.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  That's A.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  B, "It's the fire that's in the cup that kindles the soul's torches. It's the heart that's drenched in wine that flies to heaven's porches."

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Sorry, there's a bit much, a bit long. Or C, our eyes rise up to truth when we gaze at beautiful things.

• 34:45Dan Snow?

  Okay, well, I'm afraid I'm C there.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Beautiful, okay. Okay, so totting these up, this is quite tough, but I'm afraid, Dan, your sin is avarice.

• 34:54Dan Snow?

  Avarice?

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Greed. Well, you know.

• 34:56Dan Snow?

  How funny.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  You know, well, what I will say about this is it's actually a beautiful sin. And actually, it gets the best treatment in the book.

• 35:02Dan Snow?

  Oh, listen, you're like those horoscope people who go, actually, Sagittarius is the best.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  No, it is. Well done for being Capricorn.

• 35:08Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Okay, avarice is not just, it's not greed in the way we understand it. It's not just a desire for money. Avarice is an appreciation of objects. Avarice is an attention to the beauty and complexity of material things in a way that involves a lot of care. Done right, and this is, now we're getting horoscopes. Done right, avarice is a commitment to finding soul in objects. You know, you collect things, you make beautiful objects. And in so doing, you recognize that, you know, you're building the story about yourself in the world and you're imbuing things with soul. Gone wrong, however, avarice becomes an attachment to these objects. We just, you know, instead of hanging out with my friends, it's okay, I've got to go back to the antique clocks.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  I've got to, you know, I've got to, I've got to work on making that boat. And it's kind of the turning away from people. What makes avarice antisocial, when it becomes a deadly sin, is when our attention to objects makes us more interested in the objects than we are in people. And ultimately, if it's clothes, for example, it's when, you know, the clothes we wear are more interesting than us ourselves. We become mannequins. Medieval theologians describe it as kind of the becoming object yourself. You get so attached to objects, you become the object.

• 36:21Dan Snow?

  They would not have liked Instagram.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 36:23Dan Snow?

  To be honest, because I always wondered, the experience that you are, the curation of the experience becomes more important than the experience itself. It's interesting. Okay, so that's well. I now, thank you very much, I will look out for that in myself. What are they, what, since we're here, what are some of the other, that was lovely, that deeper explanation of what that sin is. What about anger, for example? Is anger more obvious, is it just losing it? What's the?

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Anger is, yeah, okay, so it's kind of got an obvious definition, you know, the loss of control, you know, I'm, I've got, I've gone into a frenzy because something has upset me, but really, it's, um, medieval theologians describe it as a love of being right, the enjoyment of being right, the part, and at its, at its best, anger is, um, you know, you recognize wrongdoing, you recognize when things are wrong and you want to put them right, you know, it's fantastic, you know, like, the legal system functions on anger in this way, you know, why do QC's get out of bed in the morning? Because they need to make right, they need to, um, and in the Middle Ages, there's a lot of recognition of this, the Crusades function on righteous anger.

• 37:23Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  But it goes wrong when you start to enjoy the thing, the feeling of being right more than putting things right itself. In other words, it's when you're online and you have an argument and you win that argument completely, you could prove their point wrong, um, and that you get this great buzz, but then you want to find another argument. So then you start another argument just to get that buzz again. Um, there's a theologian called John Iton who describes it this way, he calls it rixa or quarrelsome, which is the addiction to being right.

• 37:49Dan Snow?

  Yes, quarrelsome, that's very nice, yeah.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:52Dan Snow?

  Okay, and so, Remit, let's start at the top, since we're getting definitions, start the top, Remit is pride is the top.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Pride is, yeah, pride is the first thing, superbia in Latin.

• 37:59Dan Snow?

  And we've talked a bit about that.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  We have, it's, you know, saying you don't need other people.

• 38:03Dan Snow?

  Yes.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Believing you can always stand on your own in everything.

• 38:06Dan Snow?

  Okay, let's come down to the next one.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Envy.

• 38:08Dan Snow?

  Yes.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Envy is, it's not quite what we think it is, it's not wanting what someone else has. If I'm envious of you, I don't, let's say you've got those antique clocks, if I'm envious of you, I don't want your antique clocks, uh, I want your antique clocks to explode, catch fire.

• 38:23Dan Snow?

  Yes, right.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  I want you to fail. So in other words, if my friend has a job interview on Friday.

• 38:27Dan Snow?

  This friend, this friend's like an absolute pesting, I don't know who this friend is.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  I don't want his, I don't want his job for myself, I want him, I want him not to get that job.

• 38:37Dan Snow?

  I know, which is horrible, it doesn't affect you in any way, shape or form.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  I know, I know, and I hate myself for it. So envy is the enjoyment of other people's failure. And so the idea is, and I suppose I should have said this earlier, all the seven, all the seven deadly sins are supposed to be love gone wrong, or love gone to an excessive place. Your love of yourself gone too far, your love of objects gone too far for avarice, for envy, your Love of success, which is not so bad in itself to be successful. It's not a bad thing, but your love of success has curdled to the point where you enjoy other people's failure more.

• 39:08Dan Snow?

  What lovely words. So it's wanting your neighbour's crops to fail.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 39:11Dan Snow?

  Like, what? That's horrible. Yeah, okay, okay. But we all feel that. Okay. We are, we all have a, there's a, there can be a tendency to that. Right. So, uh, what, next one down?

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Is anger. We've already had that one.

• 39:23Dan Snow?

  Done.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Then sloth, which we've already done.

• 39:25Dan Snow?

  Yeah, very interesting. Yeah. And next one?

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Avarice, which we've already done.

• 39:29Dan Snow?

  Yes, talked about my avarice.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Yes, sorry. Gluttony is next.

• 39:33Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Remember, we're into the lesser sins now, avarice, gluttony, lust. So congratulations on making it there.

• 39:37Dan Snow?

  It was, it's a very small thing.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  You've none of the above problems, and then we come to the last three. Gluttony is not just eating too much. This is quite interesting. Gluttony is also includes a fixation and a fuss about food and drink. So the idea is, okay, so eating too much is still a problem, but so is eating too little. Because you're, it's fussing about food.

• 39:56Dan Snow?

  Tell me about it. So annoying.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. So gluttony is that moment where you really insist on something, like, you know, your friend suggests you go for lunch somewhere at this restaurant and you refuse because you don't like the food in that restaurant.

• 40:08Dan Snow?

  Don't. So annoying.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Or because you've got your heart set on that lobster roll that you promised yourself. And, you know, the way it tastes, the buttery sort of taste of that lobster roll is too much for you to resist. You're fixating too much on the food or fuss, right? You know, when I make coffee and, you know, friends have told me it's terrible, actually, my coffee, but still, I fuss over it, right? I pour the water off the spoon to cool it down to ninety degrees, deflect it off the spoon. I make sure it's only ten percent of the coffee to cafeteria ratio. I fuss too much. I make sure it's Ethiopian. I love that stuff.

• 40:36Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  It's that level of fuss. Why is it a deadly sin? Because I'm shutting out other things and I'm actually becoming a bit of a bore. Gluttony is when you, you know, you're a food bore, you know, have you heard about the, no, try this beer, not this beer.

• 40:47Dan Snow?

  Yeah. Oh, you want to drive forty five minutes across town because you can only get a, yeah, I don't.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yes. And then you shut people out because actually they're secretly really bored with your coffee making or your craft beer session.

• 40:57Dan Snow?

  I've heard all day because that's one of my personal bugbears. It drives me crazy. Okay. So that's good. Gluttony. What else?

• 41:01Speaker 01

  And then finally lust.

• 41:03Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Um, which, um, you know, the least deadly of the seven in the sense that they thought in the Middle Ages it was closest to love. So it's the most kind of redeemable sin. But of course, it's love gone wrong in the most obvious way.

• 41:15Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Um, William Peraldas, again, describes it as a feeling of out of time, meaning what? That you lust is, you know, love has a duration, you know? I love you and I'm interested in your stories about your childhood and I'm interested in your future. Uh, lust isn't interested in any of those things. I don't really care about your childhood, blah, blah, blah. And your job interview next week, whatever. Is there a next week for us? It's only now. Lust is a fixation on this present moment. Um, so, um, and of course, it's, it's caring about the body and not the person. It's treating someone like an object or a toy. Um, and they described this really well in medieval texts. So that's lust. It's also kind of sensuality in that way, and an appreciation of the surfaces of things. So it's redeemable in the sense that, you know, you are at least paying attention

• 41:58Speaker 01

  to, to how things are, you know? You're interested in other people if you have lust, but you know, maybe just in the wrong way.

• 42:03Dan Snow?

  Yeah. And you can, yeah, and lust, it, it can turn into love. I mean, it's, yeah, as you say, it's redeemable. Interesting. All right. And so what's, which is your sin?

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Uh, I came out with pride, which completely makes sense.

• 42:17Dan Snow?

  And let's be clear, that's the worst one.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  No, I know. Look, I, I, I lose this, this quiz. Um, why? I definitely don't listen to the sat nav. I have no, you know, um, and when I'm floating in that hot air balloon, I'm interested in being above other people at some level. I'm interested in being up high and, um, surveying from afar. No, but I think the thing is with pride, I, I recognize it in myself, you know? Sometimes I don't listen enough to other people's advice and I'm trying to work on it. But, you know, that sort of bloody minded convince.

• 42:44Dan Snow?

  But, but then without some of that, you would not have written this fabulous book.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 42:49Dan Snow?

  Because you, you, you have decided that there is something to be said about this centuries old topic, of which millions of other people have written books. And if you didn't have that little bit of belief and a little bit of thinking, I can add something to this historiography, then you wouldn't have done it. So don't worry, don't be too hard on yourself.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  This is great. The confessor terms confession.

• 43:07Dan Snow?

  Yes, I know, switching it up here.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Love it, love it. Oh, thank you. No, it's true. It's true. I think like, you know, the point is that all of these. In moderation, they're fantastic things.

• 43:17Dan Snow?

  That's what makes it so tantalising because we've got to just hit that. We've got to get the dashboard, we've got to get all the levers in the right place on the dashboard. I like that point. If you don't have enough of these things, that's actually equally bad.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  No, no pride would be terrible, no avarice would be terrible. You know, what would I, what would my life be like? I'd have no interest in objects. I'd have no interest in enriching the environment around me.

• 43:34Dan Snow?

  Yeah, no lust, you'd have no joy of, you know, love and companionship.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  I'd never want to connect to another person, no gluttony, you know, what would that look like?

• 43:41Dan Snow?

  Wow, where are you guys? We've got to get it, you've just got to get it right, you've got to calibrate it right. Thank you very much for helping us do that today. The book is called?

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Self Help from the Middle Ages.

• 43:50Dan Snow?

  Brilliant. Enjoy.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 43:53Dan Snow?

  Well, thanks so much to my guest, Peter Jones, coming on to the podcast. Help me better understand the curious ideas that shaped society in medieval Europe. But also, I think, to help me better understand myself, my strengths and my weaknesses. Make sure, if you're listening to this, hit follow in your podcast player. If you're watching on YouTube, you've got to smash that subscribe button and you'll get more Dan Snow's History Hit next week. See you next time.

• 44:41Dan Snow?

  Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? Sign up to History and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like how William conquered England, what it was like to live in the Georgian era, and you can even hear the voice of Richard III. We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries plus new releases every week and there's always something more to discover. Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.