The Tremulous Hand of Worcester
The variability of his work indicates that the Tremulous Hand of Worcester had a long career in glossing. He glossed sometimes in Middle English and sometimes in Latin and is thought to have written over 50,000 glosses. In some manuscripts one out of every four words is glossed, while in others only one or two glosses appear on a page. While glossing Old English texts he is also known to have edited the works, adding punctuation marks and in what is identified as his early work changing the vowels and consonants of Old English words to be more like their Middle English counterparts. His earliest work is predominantly glossed in Middle English, but later he begins to gloss equally in both Middle English and Latin. Although he is most typically identified by light brown ink, the Tremulous Hand used multiple media types and his glossing evolved throughout his career, showing a considerable range characterized by variable "layers". His hand tremor grew worse with time; also whereas in his earliest glosses he uses contemporary Middle English that reveals a close kinship with the language of the "Ancrene Wisse" manuscript Nero A.xiv (his handwriting also resembles that scribe's), he later appears to be collecting Old English words in the margin, perhaps in order to compile a glossary. He often indicates that something should be noted (using the Latin word "nota" or an abbreviation) and sometimes makes a doodle. In order to differentiate the Tremulous Hand of Worcester’s varied glosses, Christine Franzen, a literary scholar, has categorized his work into seven "layers":



Franzen, however, commented informally at a later date that identification of as many as seven layers was perhaps "over zealous". Notable glosses by the Tremulous Hand occur in Ælfric of Eynsham's "Grammar" and "Glossary", and in the Worcester manuscripts, St. Bede's Lament, The Soul’s Address to the Body and an Old English translation of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum. The Tremulous Hand is also thought to have glossed a segment of the Bodleian manuscript "Junius", which contains the earliest Middle English translation of the Nicene Creed. He is considered to have over 50,000 glosses in total. Only one manuscript remains in Worcester, which was discovered in 1837 by the antiquary Sir Thomas Phillipps, bound into the cover of later Cathedral muniments. The weight of the evidence in the features of the handwriting of the Tremulous Hand points to "essential tremor" as his neurological condition. This diagnosis takes into account characteristics of the tremor including its regular amplitude and regular frequency, and that it exhibited fluctuations in severity. Evidence points away from other conditions such as Parkinson's disease, writer's cramp and dystonic tremor. The tremor also shows signs of rapid improvement, possibly due to a combination of rest and the consumption of alcoholic beverages, and this response is consistent with essential tremor.
Variation in work
The Tremulous Hand of Worcester is the name given to a 13th-century scribe of Old English manuscripts with handwriting characterized by large, shaky, leftward leaning figures usually written in light brown ink.