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The Apple dictionary defines the word "breed" and gives this example to show a meaning:
Theodora had been beautifully bred.
I know the past perfect comes when there are two actions in the past, and one of them happened before the other; yet in this example there is only one verb or one action.
So what does it indicate or how does the meaning here differ from the simple past tense ?
Context, context, context! Dictionaries haven't got room enough to provide context for all their example sentences; but in real life such sentences only occur in some context.
You ordinarily employ a past perfect in a narrative context—a novel, for instance, or a story or history, where the events all occur in your past. At any given point in the narrative you are talking about a particular past time, and you use the past perfect to bring in events which occurred earlier than that time.
In this case, for instance, which probably derives from a novel, it is likely that Theodora's breeding is brought into the story in order to provide background for a character making her first appearance, or to explain her behavior at the current moment in the story.
