Is 'liege' masculine?

'Liege' seems to most often refer to a man. Is that because most lords in history and fiction are men, or because 'liege' is a masculine noun? If the latter, is there a feminine counterpart?

Solution 1:

To my knowledge, there is no feminine form of the noun liege. There are obvious historical reasons for this, but I lack the knowledge to give an apt explanation.

However, the decidedly masculine phrase liege lord was also quite common and more or less identical in meaning. Although I have never knowingly come across it in reading, the obvious feminine form of this is liege lady. Google Ngram leads me to believe that liege lady is used at least occasionally.

The more direct feminine form would seem to be liegess, but I have never seen or heard it used, nor does Google Ngram display a single instance of it.