Why is it said that royals have blue blood?

Question

Why is it said that royals have blue blood?

Answer 1

Blue blood is an English expression recorded since 1834 for noble birth or descent; it is a translation of the Spanish phrase sangre azul, which described the Spanish royal family and other high nobility who claimed to be 'pure', free of Moorish or Jewish blood, being of Visigothic descent. There is no connection between the phrase and the actual blood color of nobility; however, in the ancient agricultural societies of Europe the whole upper class had superficial veins that might be more visible and appear bluish by comparison to the rest of the pale-pinkish skin, as the skin itself was not tanned. In contrast with the working class of the time (mainly peasants), nobility and in general upper class people did not have to work outdoors, and mostly lived sheltered from the sun by dwellings and attire. The same contrast could be observed between untanned upper class Europeans - especially of northern stock whose skin tends to be less pigmented - and all social strata of Mediterranean populations with higher levels of genetically determined skin pigmentation. An alternative traditional explanation, argyria (a disease causing a blue-grey skin tone after digestion of silver), is considered less valid as table silverware was not massively and regularly used by much of the nobility.

Answer 2

It's the way they have been keeping the rest of us in check for centuries. It's for us "commoners" to think they are something special, when they are not

Answer 3

Co they use a vetable dye to blue the veins, so thay stand out against a white skins. This shows that they dont go out in the midday sun, like a true englishman

Answer 4

Who Told You That???????

Answer 5

Because of a history of haemophillia in royal ancestry,the pale skin & prominent veins made the blood appear blue.

Answer 6

"blue blood" is used to mean "from an aristocratic background."

Answer 7

Because they are cold blodded creatures.

Answer 8

Not enough oxygen.

Answer 9

Because they are actually reptilian

Answer 10

Blue blood refers to the direct translation of the Spanish term - sangre azul. Many of the oldest and proudest families of Castile used to boast that they were pure bred, having no link with the Moors who had for so long controlled the country, or indeed any other group. As a mark of this, they pointed to their veins, which seemed bluer in colour than those of such foreigners. This was simply because their blue-tinted veins showed up more prominently in their lighter skin, but they took it to be a mark of their pure breeding.

So the phrase blue blood came to refer to the blood which flowed in the veins of the oldest and most aristocratic families. The phrase was taken over into English in the 1830s. By the time Anthony Trollope used it in The Duke's Children in 1880, it had become common.

Answer 11

ASK ICKE

Answer 12

Noble Castilean families in Spain claimed to be of blue blood  (literally translated from "sangre azul") and thus uncontaminated by Moorish or Jewish ancestry.  Probably the idea of being blue-blooded referred to the visible veins of fair-skinned aristocrats as opposed to the tanned skin of the peasantry. By 1834, the words "sangre azul" had been translated into English as "blue blood."

Answer 13

Everyone's blood is blue until it's been oxygenated.   That's why we see our veins as blue and not red

Answer 14

There are often many explanations for a word-derivative.  One may be that "nobility" very often wore Blue clothing, a distinctive colour for jackets and dresses for the rich and aristochratic (who may not actually have been rich!).

Beyond DAve

Answer 15

because in the 15 and16th centuries royals where the only people that bathed on any kind of regular biases so the could see there veins and they where blue