LEONINE VERSES, were Latin compositions, constructed according to the laws of the classic metres, but also elaborately decorated with rhyme. Though possessing no great merit, they were very popular in the middle ages. The name is probably derived from Leoninus, a canon of Paris, and subsequently monk at Marseilles, in the twelfth century. Other derivations have been proposed, but with little plausibility. These verses have been traced as far back as the third century, at which era Commodianus wrote a piece of 1200 jingling verses. Two centuries after this, Latin
Leopardi. rhyme appears to have been introduced into the hymns sung in the churches. (See HYMNS.) St Augustine and the venerable Bede are amongst the number of leonizers. The poem of the former against the Donatists contains 270 lines, all of which rhyme to the letter E. One of the most popular works of the eleventh century, Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum, which proceeded from the physicians of Salerno, belongs to the same school. The history of the first Crusade, and the adventures of Richard Cœur de Lion, were celebrated in similar strains.
The proper leonine consists of a couplet rhyming at the end. But the line or two lines may have the rhyme distributed throughout in a great variety of ways. When the verse is divided into two members, each member, not only of the line, but of the couplet, may rhyme. Or, as in the following, the corresponding pauses in the couplet may rhyme:—
"Si tibi grata seges—est morum, gratus habebis;
Si virtutis eges—despicendus eris."
But the greatest amount of variety was produced by dividing the verse into three pauses, e.g.—
"O miseratrix—O dominatrix—præcipe dictu;
Ne devastemur—ne lapidemur—grandinis ictu."
Sometimes the three members rhymed—sometimes the whole verse of the couplet; and even farther than this, leonines occur in which every word of the one line rhymes to every word in the second. As in the case when the line was divided into two members, so here the rhyme might be manifested in the corresponding pauses of the couplet. Another device of the leonizers was that of making a pause supply the place of a common introduction to a number of lines following. Thus, in the rules to be observed at meals,—
"Dum manducatis { vultus hilares habebatis;
sal cultello capiat;
quid edendum sit ne petatis, &c. "
and so on for eleven lines, each ending in atis. The vigorous literature which arose at the time of the Reformation almost entirely banished the taste for leonizing.