Anseau de Cayeux


Anseau IV de Cayeux was a French knight from Picardy, who participated in the Third Crusade alongside his kinsman William de Cayeux; survived to join the Fourth Crusade and became a leading noble and regent of the Latin Empire.

Biography

A descendant of the lords of Cayeux-sur-Mer, according to Geoffrey of Villehardouin he took up the cross in spring 1200 along with Hugh IV, Count of Saint-Pol, and remained in the latter's entourage until the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in April 1204. According to a letter by Hugh IV, Anseau was among the knights who voted in favour of diverting the Crusade to Constantinople following the Siege of Zara. Following Hugh's death in 1205, Anseau joined the following of Henry of Flanders, the younger brother of the Latin Emperor, Baldwin of Flanders. After Baldwin was captured by the Bulgarians in the Battle of Adrianople, Henry was raised to regent of the Latin Empire. He in turn appointed Anseau as commander of the garrison at Bizye, along with six other knights and a larger number of foot soldiers. From this post he successfully defended the city against the Bulgarian tsar Kaloyan, who in the aftermath of Adrianople had captured most of the other cities in Thrace.
He continues to be mentioned alongside Henry of Flanders in the chronicle of Henry of Valenciennes as Ansil de Kaeu. Along with Conon de Béthune he led in 1207 the unsuccessful negotiations in the Pagasetic Gulf with the Lombard barons under Ravano dalle Carceri, who refused to accept the suzerainty of Emperor Henry.
Around 1230, Anseau married the Byzantine princess Eudokia Laskarina, a daughter of the Nicaean emperor Theodore I Laskaris. The princess was originally betrothed to the Latin Emperor Robert of Courtenay, but was rejected by him, which in the event cost him his throne. Following the death of John of Brienne, the senior co-emperor and guardian of Emperor Baldwin II, in March 1237, Anseau became regent of the Empire, which was now mostly limited to Constantinople and its environs, as Baldwin II was absent in Western Europe. His title was bailli, and he retained his position for about a year, after which he was replaced by Narjot de Toucy.
Anseau de Cayeux is likely to be identical with Anselino de Cazeu Camerario Imperii Romanie, who is attested as residing in the court of Charles I of Naples in 1269 to regulate the inheritance of his daughter. If that is the case, he lived through both the foundation and the downfall of the Latin Empire. His son, Anseau de Chau, served in 1273 as Charles of Naples' vicar-general in Albania and was a relative by marriage to the Serbian queen Helen of Anjou.