By a comparison of five translation of the Passio Sancte Katerine Virginis, Macbain shows the manner in which hagiographic translators might interpret their source for a particular public, a process which one of them calls “le tens selunc la gent user.” This comparison of these Old French texts with their Latin source and with one another casts light on the manner in which different medieval translators approached their task and to what extent they perceived the need to reinterpret the message - or perhaps the medium - of the eleventh-century Latin version geared to learned clerics, for the society of a different period and for a different kind of audience.