GIRY (JEAN MARIE JOSEPH), ARTHUR (1848-1899), French historian, was born at Trevoux (Ain). He studied at the Ecole des Chartes under J. Quicherat, and at the newly estab lished Ecole des Hautes Etudes, where he became assistant lec turer and afterwards full lecturer. His first important work was Histoire de la vine de Saint-Omer et de ses institutions jusqu'au XIVe siecle (1877). His lectures led to a great revival of interest in the origins and significance of the urban communities in France. Giry himself published Les Etablissements de Rouen (1883-85), a study, based on very minute researches, of the charter granted to the capital of Normandy by Henry II., king of England, and of similar charters throughout the French dominions of the Plantagenets ; a collection of Documents sur les relations de la ro yaute avec les vales de France de I I 8o a 1314 ; and Etude sur les origines de la commune de Saint-Quentin (1887).
As assistant (1883) and successor (1885) to Louis de Mas Latrie, Giry restored the study of diplomatic, which had been founded in France by Dom Jean Mabillon, to its legitimate im portance. In 1894 he published his Manuel de diplomatique, which contained the fruits of his long experience of archives, original documents and textual criticism. With the collaboration of his pupils he undertook the preparation of an inventory and, subsequently, of a critical edition of the Carolingian diplomas for the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Simultaneously with this work he carried on the publication of the annals of the Carolingian epoch on the model of the German Jahrbuclier, re serving for himself the reign of Charles the Bald. The preliminary work on the Carolingian diplomas involved such lengthy and costly researches that the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres took over the expenses after Giry's death.