Anseau de Toucy comes Soleti e la comunità ellenofona del Salento nella prima Età angioina

The article deals with the biography of Anseau de Toucy, a knight of French origin but born in Constantinople, of Greek mother, during the sixty years of the Latin Empire. The biographical traces, recoverable through historiographical sources, that link him to the Polis, to the Principality of Achaia during the rule of his brother-in-law Guillame de Villehardouin, and finally to the Angevin kingdom of Sicily are highlighted. His Franco-Greek ethnicity, common to other Angevin feudal lords who received lands in the Greek-speaking South Salento, is emphasized. The Angevin Age could, in fact, represent for Southern Apulia an important moment of contact with the Greek East. This would have allowed the spoken Greek language (the Grìco) in the Salento (still present today) to continue to exist, thanks to new arrivals of hellenophone peoples following the Frankish-Greek feudal lords. Some linguistic elements that seem to support this thesis are brought to attention.