Tremulous Hand stars in British Library's web showcase of medieval literature

Annotations of 13th-century reader, known for shaky notes that helped explain Old English to later generations, now survive in cyberspace

The shaky writing of the 13th-century annotator known as the Tremulous Hand, who is believed to have made as many as 50,000 notes on Old English manuscripts in an attempt to make them comprehensible to later readers, is revealed in all its wobbly glory by a new project from the British Library.

The Tremulous Hand is thought today to have suffered from the nerve condition known as “essential tremor”, which results in uncontrollable shaking. He worked on at least 20 Old English manuscripts stored in Worcester. By the 13th century, Old English was no longer spoken in England, and his glosses between the lines of text and in the margins were written in Middle English and Latin, essentially translating bits of the text for his contemporaries. “In other places, he clarified word division and punctuation, and changed spellings. Sometimes he added a doodle, or nota mark,” according to the British Library.

We have these precious pieces of our literary heritage that we need to preserve, but we also need to make them available

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