Jean-Marie-Joseph-Arthur Giry (29 February 184813 November 1899) was a French historian, noted for his studies of France in the Middle Ages. He was born at Trévoux. After rapidly completing his classical studies at the lycée at Chartres, he spent some time in the administrative service and in journalism. He then entered the École Nationale des Chartes, where, under the influence of J. Quicherat, he developed a strong inclination to the study of the Middle Ages. The lectures at the École pratique des hautes études, which he attended from its foundation in 1868, revealed his true bent; and henceforth he devoted himself almost entirely to scholarship. He began modestly by the study of the municipal charters of Saint-Omer. Having been appointed assistant lecturer and afterwards full lecturer at the École des Hautes Études, it was to the town of Saint-Omer that he devoted his first lectures and his first important work, Histoire de la ville de Saint-Omer et de ses institutions jusqu'au XIVe siècle (1877). He, however, soon realized that the charters of one town can only be understood by comparing them with those of other towns, and he was gradually led to continue the work which Augustin Thierry had broadly outlined in his studies on the Tiers Etat. A minute knowledge of printed books and a methodical examination of departmental and communal archives furnished him with material for a long course of successful lectures, which gave rise to some important works on municipal history and led to a great revival of interest in the origins and significance of the urban communities in France. Giry himself published Les Établissements de Rouen (1883-1885), a study, based on very minute researches, of the charter granted to the capital of Normandy by Henry II, King of England, and of the diffusion of similar charters throughout the French dominions of the Plantagenets; a collection of Documents sur les relations de la royauté avec les villes de France de 1180 à 1314 (1885); and Étude sur les origines de la commune de Saint-Quentin (1887). About this time personal considerations induced Giry to devote the greater part of his activity to the study of diplomatics, which had been much neglected at the École des Chartes, but had made great strides in Germany. As assistant (1883) and successor (1885) to Louis de Mas Latrie, Giry restored the study of diplomatics, which had been founded in France by Dom