Iban is the story of ayoung Round Table knight who pursues adventureabroad, wins a land and its lady as his wife, losesboth through his immaturity and negligence, andeventually regains his country and his spouse in aseries of adventures that teach him to place thewelfare of others above his own desires. Composed inthe 1480s by the Munich painter and writer UlrichFuetrer, Iban is aretelling of Hartmann von Aue's circa 1200 MiddleHigh German classic Iwein, itself an adaptation of Chrétiende Troyes's earlier Yvain, leChevalier au Lion. Consisting of 297stanzas of verse, Ibanis approximately forty percent the length ofHartmann's Iwein, theaction of which Fuetrer adapts to produce afaster-paced but nevertheless coherent andcompelling reimagining of the tale.

The romance is one of fifteen narratives making upFuetrer's massive Arthurian collection, Das Buch der Abenteuer, orThe Book ofAdventures, which the author compiledduring the 1480s and 1490s for Duke Albrecht IV ofBavaria-Munich. While for over a century Fuetrer'scollection has been the focus of considerableresearch in the German-speaking world – including,most recently, Rachel Raumann's 2019 monograph,Kompilation und Narration.Ulrich Fuetrers ›Buch der Abenteuer‹ als epischeLiteratur-Geschichte [Compilation andNarration: Ulrich Fuetrer's Book of Adventures as Epic LiteraryHistory] – the Bookcontinues to remain far less known among scholars ofthe medieval Arthurian tradition outside Germany,who tend to concentrate rather narrowly on the morewell-known German-language romances of Wolfram vonEschenbach and Hartmann von Aue. Fuetrer's Iban, which is among thelast premodern retellings of the Ywain story – onlyPierre Sala's circa 1518–22 LeChevalier au Lion is later – offersmodern scholars and students an invaluable windowonto how the most beloved medieval tales wereadapted at the end of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless,Iban remainsvirtually unknown outside the German-speaking worldand, indeed, scholarship on Iban even within the German-speakingworld has been limited.

AUTHOR, PATRON, AUDIENCE, AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Little is certain about Ulrich Fuetrer's early life.His exact birth year is unknown, but it seems likelythat he was born no later than the 1420s and that heprobably spent his youth in the town of Lansdshut,northeast of Munich. We know nothing for certainabout his education or professional training.