Perhaps the most pervading influence and the simplest to trace is the metrical. The iambic dimeter of Ambrose, both in its quantitative and in its rhythmical form, became a standard for poetry of all types, appearing even in the modern age as the long meter of the metrical versions of the Psalms. Trochaic verse, initiated in hymns by Hilary, employed most effectively by Fortunatus and always a favorite, rivalled the iambic in the vernaculars. As the metrical features of the Victorine sequence became increasingly popular, they were taken over bodily by secular poets writing both in Latin and in the modern European languages. Classical meters fostered by Prudentius and later by the Carolingian poets showed less vitality as poetical models. The liturgical hymn and the sequence are of prime importance in their metrical aspects but the meters of the _piae cantiones_ and other religious lyrics were also widely appropriated. The origin of rhyme is a related problem which in the opinion of W. B. Sedgwick “centers around the Christian hymn.”[1] Numerous publications by scholars who, like Sedgwick, have spoken with authority, bear witness to the general linguistic and literary interest attaching to these subjects of research. Aside from aspects of meter and rhyme, medieval secular verse in Latin borrowed generously from the hymn; witness the songs of the wandering scholars as recorded in the collection edited under the title _Cambridge Songs_ and also the goliardic poetry of the _Carmina Burana_.[2] Well-known hymns are frequently parodied and, in general, the liturgical models are employed to create humorous allusion or pungent satire. The student song _Gaudeamus igitur_ is a familiar illustration of this general group. The adaptation of the sequence to secular purposes resulted in a novel type of verse, the _modus_, already cited in connection with the origin of the sequence, illustrated by the _Modus florum_ of which many examples have been preserved varying in beauty and poetic conceit. Reference has been made in an earlier chapter to the deeper problems underlying sequence origins on the poetical side. Discussion among scholars as to the priority of the religious or secular Latin lyric is still active.[3] Some would say that popular Latin verse arose by virtue of the hymnodic influence. Others would posit a vernacular impulse which eventuated in the Latin lyric both secular and religious.[4]