This study explores the treatment of emperors and over-kings in medieval Welsh prose texts within the context of the late 13 th century Edwardian conquest of Wales and its fourteenth century ramifications. After 1282, texts concerned with empire and centered around a powerful conquering king or emperor would have been read in Wales the context of the recent English conquest, which firmly subordinated Wales to England. This study explores the historical realities that shaped the value and meaning placed on these empire texts by the men who read, wrote, and listened to them in the fourteenth century. It goes on to explore how these texts mediated the changes, adversities, and opportunities that were newly introduced with the solidifying and intensifying of the English lordship over the Welsh. Different texts provide different views of empire: overall these Middle Welsh texts support empire as a stabilizing element, though some celebrate the benefits to be gained from it and others reveal the anxieties of the men who serve it. In looking at the ways that the emperors (and their conquered peoples and vassals) are treated in these tales, I explore the ways in which the medieval Welsh negotiated their relationships with authority, revealing a complexity of attitude and a deep ambivalence toward authority.

I focus on the characters of three emperors, Maxen Wledic (Magnus Maximus), Arthur, and Charlemagne, as they appear in medieval Welsh prose tales. This involves close reading of these texts and analysis of the language surrounding the characters and actions of these rulers, carefully and thoroughly contextualized by reference to history and to other medieval Welsh literature. The study examines the texts: Breudwyt Maxen Wledic [' The Dream of Maxen Wledig '], Brut y Brenhinedd ([' The Chronicle of the Kings '], the Welsh translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae ), Owein (the Welsh counterpart to Chrétien's Yvain ), and the Welsh Charlemagne material, gathered under the rubric Ystorya de Carolo Magno (which includes the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle , the romance of Otuel , and part of the Chanson de Roland ), and Pererindod Siarlymaen [' The Pilgrimage of Charlemagne '].