![]() ![]() His motivation seems to have been to improve the clarity of the Old English texts for fellow monks and priests more familiar with Latin or Middle English. The Tremulous Hand’s glosses, usually located in between lines of text, update Old English spellings or provide a direct word-for-word translation of the Old English into Latin or Middle English. Linking the numerous glosses found across manuscripts at the Worcester Cathedral to the Tremulous Hand provides knowledge about the period of transition from Old English to Middle English. 5Įmergent knowledge from the Tremulous Hand Specifically, the distinguishable nature of his work contributes to the understanding of the transition from Old English to Middle English, the early linguistic study of Old English, and the renewed emphasis on priestly duties in thirteenth-century Catholic England. 7,8 The Tremulous Hand, in part because his easily identifiable script links him to work spanning more than twenty manuscripts, provides valuable emergent knowledge about the thirteenth century. For example, because modern neurology provides the insight that essential tremor worsens over time, the degeneration of the Tremulous Hand’s handwriting allows for a rough chronology to be established for his writings, an emergent property that is not afforded to the work of other contemporary scribes. 6 Knowing that the Tremulous Hand suffered from essential tremor lends insight into who the Tremulous Hand was, which, in turn, can help glean more information about his life and historical context that could not be obtained through the words he wrote alone. 3–5Ī recent study conducted by a paleographer (someone who studies handwriting) and a neurologist concluded that the Tremulous Hand suffered from essential tremor on the basis of a regular and fine amplitude tremor, the absence of micrographia, and temporary tremor improvement, likely because of rest or alcohol ingestion-alcohol was regularly consumed throughout the day in the Middle Ages. 2 Instead, he seems to have spent most of his time glossing and annotating manuscripts written in Old English the Tremulous Hand’s glosses translated Old English words to their Middle English or Latin equivalents while his annotations highlighted passages of interest. However, the Tremulous Hand’s infirmity likely precluded him from this occupation. ![]() 2,3 At this time, one of the key duties of a monastery was the production of religious texts copied tediously by a dedicated group of skilled scribes. The Tremulous Hand was most likely a monk at the Worcester Cathedral Priory in the English Midlands sometime in the early 1200s, a time when Middle English was spoken by all but the Norman nobles in England. His birth name has not yet been discovered, but he is known to scholars as the Tremulous Hand. However, one scribe’s work has been carefully preserved through an interesting feature of his writing: a pronounced tremor that makes his writing shaky and jerky. The names and identities of these copyists and translators have been lost to history. 1 These scribes spent hours toiling away in dark rooms copying, translating, and authoring almost all of the written knowledge of their culture. In the Middle Ages, before the ubiquity of the printing press, the act of writing and preserving the knowledge of Western Europe was promulgated primarily by monastic scribes. Image courtesy of Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford ( CC BY-NC 4.0). These additions are likely to have been made in the scribe’s later years as evidenced by the pronounced tremor that appears in his writing. 68r – written approximately 1075 AD in Old English – shows the characteristic shaky script of the thirteenth-century scribe known as the Tremulous Hand. An anonymous homily contained within Bodleian Library MS. Essential tremor in a medieval scribe: extracting hidden historical knowledge from the work of the Tremulous Hand September 30, 2021Īnnotations and Glosses of the Tremulous Hand.
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