The edition in this volume observes the currentstrophe- and line-numbering conventions for the PartI and Part II narratives of the Book of Adventures, and that systemreflects the position of a given strophe or linewithin the first two parts of the Book as a whole. Theunbracketed number next to Iban's medieval German text reflectsthat currently accepted strophe number, while thebracketed number represents the numbering systemused by Iban's firsteditor, Alice Carlson, who sequentially numbered thestrophes 1 to 297.

The volume presents a conservatively critical editionof Iban as transmittedin MS A of Ulrich Fuetrer's Book of Adventures. It attempts toreflect the language and orthography of MS A to themaximum extent possible while simultaneouslyproviding a text that is accessible to both seasonedscholars and students new to medieval literary andlanguage studies. The edition consciously avoidsrecreating an original Urtext for Iban, and takes material from the othermanuscript transmitting Iban – MS b – only in cases where MS Ais clearly in error.

All abbreviations used in the manuscripts have beenexpanded silently. Because scribal use ofabbreviations is not fully consistent, I have beenguided in my expansions by unabbreviated formsappearing in close proximity to the abbreviations inquestion, as well as by current conventions inmedieval literature studies for the expansion ofsuch abbreviations.

The layout in this edition of each strophe in sevenseparate and individually indented lines is aimed atmaking the rhyme scheme of the original transparentand is not intended to reproduce how the manuscriptspresent the strophes. Thus, both MS A and MS bpresent individual strophes as continuousparagraphs, with the break between lines of verseindicated only by virgules, that is, small slantedlines.

The punctuation and capitalization of the edited textfollow current English-language usage and are notintended to reflect the punctuation andcapitalization of the manuscripts. The manuscripts,in fact, contain no punctuation other than a marksignalling strophe endings – i.e. ‘∿’ – and avirgule separating verse lines.

Otherwise, the text presented here largely reproducesthe orthography, language, and spelling of MS A. Forexample, the edition generally respects MS A's wordboundaries.