Compounds are frequent in Old English and remain so to the present. Many Old English compounds have disapeared and new ones have been created. It is my impression from reading Middle English texts, however, that compounding is not as frequent in Middle English as it in Old or Early Modern English. This may be due to the wealth of loans in Middle English. Compare, for instance,the Old English Riddles to Chaucer. We could also explore the new compounds in Middle English by year using the advanced search in the OED.