Romance and the formation of ethnic identities in England and Wales, c. 1050 to c. 120

This study examines a selection of narratives produced by the Welsh and Norman aristocracies during the period c. 1050 to c. 1200---or, the period immediately preceding the Norman Conquest and the era of active Welsh resistance to Norman colonization, until the rise of Llewelyn ap Iorworth. Beginning with Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, the widely-appealing notion of a unified "Briton" identity is considered against the fragmented and factional identities between and among the various peoples of Britain at the time of the text's production. Chapter two examines Gerald of Wales' Itinerarium Kambriae and Descriptio Kambriae, which present arguments for the separation of Anglo-Norman and Welsh peoples, and the subjugation of the latter under the former. Despite their obvious temporal and ideological distinctiveness, both Geoffrey and Gerald are instrumental in abstracting and fictionalizing the origins of the Norman and Welsh peoples, and mythologizing a common genealogy for them---all in the interest of forging a new concept of singular "Welshness" that is negotiated in the literary imagination and solidified in the Insular chivalric romance. The Welsh romances examined in chapters three, four, and five---Pwyll Pendeuic Dyuet, Gereint vab Erbin, and Peredur vab Efrawc, respectively---show a clear trajectory in Welsh aristocratic attitudes toward Anglo-Norman power. While earlier texts like Pwyll and Gereint consider how Welsh aristocratic families might regain autonomy over the rule of their lands and people, later texts like Peredur are concerned with how best to find favor and acceptance under established Anglo-Norman rule. Reading these Welsh tales against analogous Anglo-Norman and Champenois tales---Marie de France's Lanval (chapter 3), Chretien de Troyes' Erec et Enide (chapter 4), and Didot Perceval (chapter 5)---reveals status-based notions of ethnicity that are the underpinnings of a deeply ambivalent psychological conquest of Wales.