O, cur iubes canere?[2]—
the arrangement of longer and shorter lines, the management of rime or assonance, and the studied grouping of consonant sounds, give rather the impression of too much than too little artifice.
[2] Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, vol. iii (ed. L. Traube), p. 731.
From Church Latin rime passed into French, and with the twelfth century entered on a new course of development at the hands of the trouvères and the minstrels. The trouvères, or 'makers', studied versification and music as a profession, and competed in the weaving of ingenious patterns. Since their living depended on pleasing their audience, those minstrels who were not themselves composers spared no pains to sing or recite well the compositions of others; and good execution encouraged poets to try more difficult forms.
The varied results obtained in two such excellent schools of experience were offered to the English poets of the thirteenth century in exchange for the monotony of the long line; and their choice was unhesitating. In an age of lyrical poetry they learned to sing where before they could only declaim: and because the great age of craftsmanship had begun, the most intricate patterns pleased them best. Chaucer was perhaps not yet born when the over-elaboration of riming metres in English drew a protest from Robert Mannyng:[3] and when, after a period of hesitancy, rimed verse regained its prestige in Chaucer's prime, nameless writers again chose or invented complex stanza forms and sustained them throughout long poems. If The Pearl stood alone it might be accounted a literary tour de force: the York and Towneley plays compel the conclusion that a high standard of metrical workmanship was appreciated by the common people.
If it were made in ryme couwee,
Or in strangere, or enterlacé,
Þat rede Inglis it ere inowe
Þat couthe not haf coppled a kowe,