On the Grammar and Rhetoric of language mixing in Piers Plowman

In excerpt (1) below, the Dreamer of Langland’s Piers Plowman is expressing his dissatisfaction with friars; the passage is a typical example of what is often called “macaronic language” - a conventionalized style where two languages (here Middle English and Latin, or a few times French) are mixed in a happy combination for fairly well-documented rhetorical purposes. In line (4) the Latin prepositional phrase In fame et frigore conjoins the Middle English NP flappes of scourges; lines (5) and (12-13) exemplify full clauses, with Biblical associations, in Latin. That Langland’s virtuoso combining of Latin and English is a result of careful planning is shown by his occasional, extremely pointed metalinguistic comments,