Here, after the opening, the first pair has seventeen syllables, and the next pair twenty-six. The last pair quoted has twenty; and the final line of seventeen syllables has no fellow. A further rhythmical advance seems reached by the following Sequence from the abbey of St. Martial at Limoges. It may have been written in the eleventh century. It is given here with the first and second line of the couplets opposite to each other, as strophe and antistrophe; and the lines themselves are divided to show the assonances (or rhymes) which appear to have corresponded with pauses in the melody: “(1) Canat omnis turba (2a) Fonte renata (2b) Laude jucunda Spiritusque gratia et mente perspicua (3a) Jam restituta (3b) Sicque jactura pars est decima coelestis illa fuerat quae culpa completur in laude perdita. divina. (4a) Ecce praeclara (4b) Enitet ampla dies dominica per orbis spatia, (5a) Exsultat in qua (5b) Quia destructa plebs omnis redempta, mors est perpetua.”[313] A Sequence of the eleventh century will afford a final illustration of approach to a regular strophic structure, and of the use of the final one-syllable rhyme in _a_, throughout the Sequence: 1 “Alleluia, Turma, proclama leta; Laude canora, Facta prome divina, Jam instituta Superna disciplina, 2 Christi sacra Per magnalia Es quia de morte liberata Ut destructa Inferni claustra Januaque celi patefacta! 3 Jam nunc omnia Celestia Terrestria Virtute gubernat eterna. In quibus sua Judicia Semper equa Dat auctoritate paterna.” * * * *[314] As the eleventh century closed and the great twelfth century dawned, the forces of mediaeval growth quickened to a mightier vitality, and distinctively mediaeval creations appeared. Our eyes, of course, are fixed upon the northern lands, where the Sequence grew from prose to verse, and where derivative or analogous forms of popular poetry developed also. Up to this time, throughout mediaeval life and thought, progress had been somewhat uncrowned with palpable achievement. Yet the first brilliant creations of a master-workman are the fruit of his apprentice years, during which his progress has been as real as when his works begin to make it visible. So it was no sudden birth of power, but rather faculties ripening through apprentice centuries, which illumine the period opening about the year 1100. This period would carry no human teaching if its accomplishment in institutions, in philosophy, in art and poetry, had been a heaven-blown accident, and not the fruit of antecedent discipline.