Later on, in the fifteenth century, vocalic alliteration in general falls into disuse more and more.
§ 55. Comparison of Middle English and Old English alliterative verse. With regard to the rhythmic structure of the verse the Middle English alliterative line is not very different from the corresponding Old English metre. Two beats in each hemistich are, of course, the rule, and it has been shown by Dr. K. Luick, in a very valuable paper on the English alliterative line in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries,[111] that all the different types which Prof. Sievers has discovered for the two sections of the Old English alliterative line occur here again, but with certain modifications.
The modifications which the five chief types have undergone originated in the tendency to simplify their many varieties exactly in the same way as the Old English inflexional forms of the language were simplified and generalized in the Middle English period.
Only three of the five old types, viz. those with an even number of members (A, B, C), are preserved in the second section of the verse, and those not in their original forms. They show further a certain tendency to assimilate to each other.
In types B and C the variations with disyllabic anacrusis occurred most frequently, as was also the case in type A, and verses of this kind now become predominant. Furthermore, in the Old English alliterative line, endings consisting of an accented and an unaccented syllable (feminine endings) prevailed; and type B was the only one of the symmetrical types ending with an accented syllable. In Middle English the use of feminine endings goes so far that the original type B has disappeared altogether and given place to a new type with an unaccented last syllable corresponding to the form ××–́×–́×.
Prof. Luick very properly calls this type BC, holding that it originated from the variations ××–́×⏑́͜× and ××⏑́͜×–́× of the old types B and C in consequence of the lengthening of the originally short accented syllable. Verse-ends with two unaccented syllables, which might have arisen in the same way from –́× = ⏑́͜××, did not become popular; and verse-ends with one unaccented syllable predominated. Lastly, an important feature of the later verse-technique deserves notice, that a monosyllabic anacrusis (an initial unaccented syllable) is generally allowed in types where it was not permitted in the Old English alliterative line. The consequence of these changes is that the rhythm of the verse which was in Old English a descending rhythm, becomes in Middle English ascending, and is brought into line with the rhythm of the contemporary even-beat metres.
This is the state of development presented by the Middle English alliterative line in one of the earliest poems of this group, viz. in the fragments of King Alisaunder, the versification of which, as a rule, is very correct.
Here the three types only which we have mentioned occur in the second hemistich.
Type A is most common, corresponding to the formula (×)–́××–́×:
lórdes and óoþer 1, déedes of ármes 5, kíd in his tíme 11, térme of his lífe 16,