The volume presents a collection of papers by well-known scholars from a variety of disciplines. It is based on the findings of the 2006 Freiburg Colloquium, which concerned itself for the first time with the long tradition of the Seven Deadly Sins and medieval catalogues of vices. A systematic account is given of the field from the perspectives of historians, literary scholars, theologians, philosophers, art historians and legal historians, and a vivid picture is drawn of the desires and fears of people in the Middle Ages, but also of life in medieval society.