This book has explored a feature of Middle English alliterative poetry much praised: its descriptions, and how they relate to the narrative. Here and there I have suggested sources or models for descriptive passages without confronting fully two difficult questions: what precedents are there for the poets’ fondness for description, and are their descriptive techniques in any way distinctive?

In searching for precedents we might naturally look first to a form of alliterative verse composed a century or more earlier, Laȝamon's Brut, an expanded version in long-lines of Wace's Roman de Brut from the mid twelfth century in rhyming octosyllables. In a remarkable and original passage, Wace describes Arthur's embarkation from Southampton (11190– 238). The account is full of precise and technical detail: the ships are renovated and checked out, helmets, shields and hauberks carried aboard, horses dragged in. Finally they set sail:

As the ships move out to sea the seamen adjust and secure the various sails and, observing wind and stars, set their course for France.