The refrain of today’s Poem of the Day, “Timor Mortis Conturbat Me,” derives from the Office of the Dead, part of the ancient Catholic Liturgy of the Hours, with its psalms and canticles, its antiphons and responses. This phrase, timor mortis conturbat me, occurs as part of a responsory in the late-night hour of Matins: Peccantem me quotidie, et non poenitentem, timor mortis conturbat me. Quia in inferno nulla est redemptio, miserere mei, Deus, et salva me: “Sinning daily, and not repenting, the fear of death disturbs me. Because there is no redemption in Hell, have mercy on me, O God, and save me.”

It’s a phrase which, in Latin, would have been familiar to any medieval European. Across Europe, the language of the Church — at least the bits and pieces which offered themselves to the general public daily in the Mass and in forms of corporate prayer — coexisted with whatever the vernacular happened to be in a given place, as a parallel mother tongue. From this coexistence of languages bubbled up a medieval folk-song form: the macaronic song.