Arthur Giry

Who was Arthur Giry?

Jean-Marie-Joseph-Arthur Giry 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 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 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. 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.