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Deborah Thorpe

Dr Deborah Thorpe was trained as a medieval literary scholar and historian at the Universities of Birmingham, Oxford and York. After that, she had research positions at the Ashmolean Museum and the British Library. She has now taken up a position at the Centre for Chronic Diseases and Disorder (C2D2) at the University of York.

“My new project uses digital image processing to examine medieval handwriting for evidence of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease. Problems with movement are one of the symptoms of neurological diseases. Handwriting, which depends on small and precise movements, can be severely affected. In the medieval period, professional scribes earned a living using their handwriting, writing documents and books. My project uses digital methodologies to look for evidence of how the lives of medieval writers were affected when their handwriting abilities declined. I also write regularly for my blog, The Scribe Unbound and I’m an avid user of Twitter.”