Includes indexes.

Bibliography: v. 1, p. [531]-552; v. 2, p. [433]-534.

Volume 1: Part I: Traditions inherited. Attitudes about women from the centuries before 800 A.D. -- Buried traditions: the question of origins -- Inherited traditions: the principal influences -- Traditions subordinating women -- Traditions empowering women -- The effects of Christianity -- Part II: Women of the fields . Sustaining the generations -- The constants of the peasant women's world: the Ninth to the Twentieth Centuries -- Sustaining the generations -- The extraordinary -- What remains of the peasant woman's world -- Part III: Women of the churches. The power of the faithful -- The patterns of power and limitation: the Tenth to the Seventeenth Centuries -- Authority within the institutional church -- Authority outside the institutional church -- Authority given and taken away: the protestant and Catholic reformations -- Traditional images redrawn -- The legacy of the protestant reformation -- Part IV: Women of the castles and manors. Custodians of land and lineage -- From warrior's wife to noblewoman: the Ninth to the Seventeenth centuries -- Constants of the noblewoman's life -- Power and vulnerability -- The new flowering of ancient traditions -- Part V : Women of the walled towns. Providers and partners -- The townswoman's daily life: the Twelfth to the Seventeenth Centuries -- Dangers and Remedies -- The world of commercial capitalism: the Thirteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries -- The invisible and visible bonds of misogyny.

Volume 2: Part VI: Women of the courts. Rulers, patrons, and attendants -- The world of absolute Monarchs from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries -- the life of the courtier -- The traditional life in a grand setting: wife and Queen Consort -- Women rulers -- New opportunities -- The legacies of renaissance humanism and the scientific revulution -- Part VII : Women of the salons and parlors. Ladies, Housewives, and professionals -- Women in the salons -- Women in the parlors -- Leaving the parlors -- Opportunities and limits: change and tradition in the Twentieth Century -- Part VIII : Women of the cities. Mothers, workers, and revolutionaries -- Family Life -- Earning income -- Revolutions and reforms -- Continuity and change: women in World War II and after -- Part IX : Traditions rejected. A history of feminism in Europe -- Feminism in Europe -- Asserting women's humanity: Early European feminists -- Asserting women's legal and political equality: equal rights movements in Europe -- Feminist socialism in Europe -- The women's liberation movement.