THE HUY NATIVITY FROM THE SEVENTEENTH TO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY:

Abstract

In the first half of the seventeenth century, a community of Burgundian Carmelite nuns translated and adapted a late fifteenth-century playscript which had been copied by some of their forebears, producing a new version of their house’s medieval Christmas play. This article chronicles the experiences of two researchers who worked together to translate the seventeenth-century script into contemporary English for performance. Beginning with those experiences, it examines some of the relationships between the two versions of the play, explores the ways in which contemporary performance can enhance our understanding of it, and situates the seventeenth-century play in the context of the convent’s commemorative practices and traditions