d to unmarried women, was a
term of consideration applied to all women of the better class during
the Middle Ages. It was indicative of her superior rank, and was
especially adhered to by gentlewomen who married out of their station,
as a sign of their good birth and gentle breeding.

The term "gentle blood," as now understood, means only that some
persons have the fortunate circumstance of refined parentage or
ancestry; but in the Middle Ages, when the pride of gentle blood
was one of the most distinguishing characteristics of the prevailing
feudal society, it was seriously believed that through the
whole extent of the aristocratic classes there ran one blood,
distinguishable from the blood of all other persons. So strongly was
this view entertained, that it was commonly thought that if a child of
gentle blood should be stolen or abandoned in infancy, and then bred
up as a peasant or a burgher, without knowledge of its origin, it
would display, as it grew toward manhood, unmistakable proofs of its
gentle origin, in spite of education and example. Whatever the fallacy
of this belief, its effect upon the ladies of superior birth was to
make them prize their station highly; but it also created a spirit of
haughtiness toward those who were below their station, and a harshness
in their relation to their domestics which was not always conformable
to the graciousness and consideration which these very ladies often
displayed where there was no question involving their caste.

In considering the dress of the women of the Middle Ages, we remarked
upon the censure and sarcasm which were passed upon the vanities into
which women were led by their devotion to the changing fashions of
the day. Every class of society was pervaded by a love of dress, which
expressed itself in the greatest extravagances and absurdities. A
knight of the fourteenth century compiled for three young ladies, the
daughters of a knight of Normandy, a manuscript which contains advice
and directions for the regulation of their conduct through life.
It contains several very curious passages relative to dress: "Fair
daughters," says their mentor, "I pray you that ye be not the first to
take new shapes and guises of array of women of strange countries." He
then inveighs against the wearing of superfluous quantities of furs
as edging for their gowns, their hoods, and their sleeves. After
commenting upon the sinfulness of useless fashions and their effect
upon the