The fundamental monograph of the outstanding French historian Jean Delumeau is devoted to the study of the origins and evolution of the culture of guilt in the Renaissance and in modern times. The book opens with a message about the amazing combination of "psychology of the besieged fortress" and "guilt complex" in the collective consciousness of Europe since the XIV century. A European man afflicted with the "disease of conscientiousness" becomes the main enemy of himself. Calls for conversion and repentance, which became almost the main content of almanacs for reading, reinforced another thesis of the church -... "that Satan is everywhere, and therefore in the heart of every person. "Self-humiliation and fear became an internal form of European civilization at the beginning of the New Age: "To the "fear," "fright," "shock" and "anxiety" caused by various external threats arising from the elements or from people, two equally oppressive feelings were added: the "nightmare" of sin and the "inextricable horror" before hellish torment...