Celtic churchmen were pioneers among medieval Latin hymnists, their earliest contribution dating from the sixth century. Religious lyrics in the Celtic tongue must have been produced and recorded before the Danish invasions although the destruction of these manuscripts delayed the compiling of new vernacular collections until the eleventh century. The hymn _Hymnum dicat turba fratrum_, written in trochaic tetrameter, and preserved in the Bangor Antiphonary, to which reference has been made in Chapter One, apparently influenced the metrical system of Celtic poetry. The metrical pattern used by Otfried, a quatrain of seven-syllable lines with rhymed couplets, is commonly found.[10] Latin influence is at least tentatively acknowledged by scholars in the rhyme and stanza structure of Celtic poetry prior to the eleventh century.[11] After the creation of the Latin sequence, vernacular poetry is overwhelmingly affected by this new type of hymn. Germanic poets followed the leadership of Notker. The Victorine school, rejecting the strophic system and rhythmic model of the Germans, built the couplet and rhyme, already existing in hymns, into a characteristic structure which proved to be easily transferable to vernacular uses. It has been asserted that the lyric poetry of the Middle Ages, in German, French, Provençal and English was reborn in this conquest of the vernacular by the Latin sequence.[12] At the same time, the possible influence of the vernacular over the Latin must not be ignored. There is a resemblance, for instance, between the narrative elements of sequences written in honor of saints and the ballads of secular poetry.[13] Whatever the conflicting currents may have been in the period of origins, the smooth-flowing stream of the vernacular religious lyric with its many tributaries, refreshed the spirit of medieval man and recalled to memory his religious heritage. The vitality of this new religious poetry which flourishes in the later centuries, in which the Latin hymn suffered so marked a deterioration, suggests that the future of the hymn, like other media of Latin literature, was to be realized in a new linguistic environment. It was not the verity but the language that was destined to change. In order to appreciate the variety and interest of that vernacular lyric poetry which arose within the sphere of influence of the Latin hymn, illustrations may be culled from many parts of Europe. _Mary-Verse in Meistergesang_ is the title chosen by Sister Mary Schroeder for her study of one aspect of the German lyric.[14] A very large proportion, perhaps two-thirds of the songs are religious in content, showing to a degree, their dependence upon hymnal poetry, while nearly one-fourth of them are devoted to the praise of the Virgin. Occasionally, a Latin sequence has been freely translated, paraphrased or elaborated.