1The following stylistic forms have been adopted for this work. Sister-Book(s) is used instead of Schwesternbuch(ër). Life/lives and vita/vitae are used interchangeably throughout the work.

2Where possible, place names have been anglicized, including those that are part of Dominican women's names. However, I have kept the medieval spelling and forms of the women's personal names, as well as those of their male counterparts, except in those cases where an anglicized version is already in common usage among scholars. Hence Heinrich Seuse becomes Henry Suso, but Johannes Tauler remains Johannes Tauler. I have translated von and de into the English of. Many of the women have the German feminine ending -in added to the end of their family names. I have chosen to retain this ending as this is the form in which the women appear in other documentation, and because it is not always clear if the ending is in fact an ending or perhaps part of the masculine version of the name as well.

3I have attempted to regularize all transcriptions from manuscripts and editions in the following manner. ß is rendered ss, unless it is within a direct quotation from a secondary source or it is transcribed from a primary source. All diphthongs are rendered as separate letters. I have normalized the diverse forms of umlauts found in the manuscripts and editions to reflect modern usage.