§ 215. Of the three chief kinds of rhyme, in its widest sense (mentioned § [10]), i.e. alliteration, assonance, and end-rhyme, only the last need be taken into consideration here. There are, indeed, some poems in Old English in which end-rhyme is used consciously and intentionally (see §§ [40–1]), but it was never used in that period for the construction of stanzas. This took place first in Middle English under the influence and after the model of the Low Latin and the Romanic lyrics.
The influence of the Low Latin lyrical and hymnodic poetry on the Old English stanzas is easily explicable from the position of the Latin language as the international tongue of the church and of learning during the Middle Ages. The influence of the lyrical forms of Provence and of Northern France on Middle English poetry was rendered possible by various circumstances. In the first place, during the crusades the nations of Western Europe frequently came into close contact with each other. A more important factor, however, was the Norman Conquest, in consequence of which the Norman-French language during a considerable time predominated in the British Isles and acted as a channel of communication of literature with the continent. One historical event deserves in this connexion special mention—the marriage in the year 1152 of Henry, Duke of Normandy (who came to the throne of England in 1154), and Eleonore of Poitou, widow of Louis VII of France; in her train Bernard de Ventadorn, the troubadour, came to England, whither many other poets and minstrels soon followed him, both in the reign of Henry and of his successor Richard Coeur de Lion, who himself composed songs in the Provençal and in the French language. The effect of the spread of songs like these in Provençal and French in England was to give a stimulus and add new forms to the native lyrical poetry which was gradually reviving. At first indeed the somewhat complicated strophic forms of the Provençal and Northern French lyrics did not greatly appeal to English tastes, and were little adapted to the less flexible character of the English tongue. Hence many of the more elaborate rhyme-systems of Provençal and Northern French lyrical versification were not imitated at all in English; others were reproduced only in a modified and often very original form; and only the simpler forms, which occurred mostly in Low Latin poetry as well, were imitated somewhat early and with little or no modification.
§ 216. The end-rhyme, which is so important a factor in the formation of stanzas, has many varieties, which may be classified in three ways:
A. According to the number of the rhyming syllables.
B. According to the quality of these syllables.
C. According to the position of the rhyme in relation to the line and the stanza.
Intimately connected with this last point is the use of rhyme as an element in the structure of the stanza.
A. With regard to the number of the syllables, rhymes are divided into three classes, viz.:
1. The monosyllabic or single rhyme (also called masculine), e.g. hand: land, face: grace.
2. The disyllabic or double rhyme (also called feminine), as ever: never, brother: mother, treasure: measure, suppression: transgression; or owe me: know me Shakesp. Ven. and Ad. 523–5; bereft me: left me ib. 439–41. The terms masculine and feminine originated with the Provençal poets and metrists, who were the first among the people of Western Europe to theorize on the structure of the verses which they employed, and introduced these terms in reference to the forms of the Provençal adjective, which were monosyllabic or accented on the last syllable in the masculine, and disyllabic or accented on the last syllable but one in the feminine: bos–bona, amatz–amada.