Natalis de Wailly

Natalis de Wailly (10 May 1805, Mézières, Ardennes – 4 December 1886, Paris) was a French archivist, librarian and historian.

In 1841, as head of the Administrative Section of the Royal Archives, he wrote a ministerial circular, issued by Count Tanneguy Duchâtel, Minister of the Interior, stating that records should be grouped according to the nature of the institution that has accumulated them and formulating the principle of respect des fonds (up until that point, archives had often been sorted according to subject, date or place).

In 1854, he was appointed head of the manuscript department of the Bibliothèque impériale.

A member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres since 1841 and of several learned societies (e.g. Société de l'histoire de France, Société des anciens textes français, Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques), he was a renowned paleographer and published scientific editions of medieval chroniclers (e.g. Villehardouin^[1] and Joinville^[2]).

Notes

1. Geoffroy de Ville-Hardouin, La conquête de Constantinople, 1872 (text and translation)
2. Histoire de Saint Louis, par Jean, sire de Joinville, 1868. Jean, sire de Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, Credo and Lettre à Louis X, 1874 (translation).

References

Henri Wallon, "Notice sur la vie et les travaux de M. Joseph-Natalis de Wailly", Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, 1888, p. 581-608.