One question we have not yet satisfactorily solved is the question of how the chronicle should be presented to the public. The clearest solution to these issues are dealt with the criteria outlined by the CHARTA project. We intend to produce an edition which will have collectable palaeographic (or perhaps “graphic” since we do not intend to represent different letter shapes with different characters) transcriptions linked to manuscript images, and these will be viewable both in abbreviated and expanded forms. It seems to me that this fulfils the first two requirements of the CHARTA criteria. The the third area, question of the “edited” text, though is a little more problematic. Given that we do not have a single authorised Alfonsine version of the text and that we want to represent (at least) three major recensions (versión primitiva, versión crítica and versión enmendada de 1289), the question of what an “edited” Estoria might look like is a complex one, not least because there is not a single Estoria. In presenting an “edited” Estoria for public perusal, we face the question of what the readership might be, and we must therefore raise the question of which editorial interventions to make. In the past, I have resisted greatly the idea of regularising even something as basic as vocalic and consonantal i/j b/v/u since placing modern graphs on medieval text seems to me to be unnecessary, even for non-specialist readers. The question of whether any editorial intervention beyond the most basic (capitalisation, insertion of speech marks) is required is therefore very much a live one…
